


Snowdin's Boys

by kaliawai512



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Babybones (Undertale), Big Brother Sans, Brotherly Affection, Cinnamon Roll Papyrus, Cuddling & Snuggling, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Past Character Death, Past Child Abuse, Past Unethical Experimentation, Platonic Cuddling, Sans Needs A Hug, Sans doesn't want help, Secret Santa, Slice of Life, Younger Brother Papyrus, basically two kids growing up alone, but the residents of Snowdin help anyway, taking care of themselves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-02-28 20:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 34,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13279401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaliawai512/pseuds/kaliawai512
Summary: It takes a village to raise a child. Or, in this case, two skeleton children.No one knows who Sans and Papyrus’s parents are. But Snowdin will do its best to fill in.The brothers fill in the gaps from there.(Undertale Secret Santa 2017 gift forHan-samaon Tumblr!)





	1. come a little closer

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays to my Undertale Secret Santa recipient, Han!! :D
> 
> For people who have read my other stuff, this is quite different from my usual work, in some ways - in part because it’s my first time writing Sans and Papyrus as anything other than twins. Similar to Butterscotch and Bones, this is sort of a plotless, slice-of-life sort of thing that slowly builds toward a conclusion, but overall just follows two kids through their challenging life.
> 
> I’m intentionally leaving their backstory vague here, so you can fill in the blanks. But I daresay that I … accidentally based part of it on my good friend Randomcat1832’s story [Not With a Bang But With](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10877892/chapters/24168240) (which you should totally read if you haven’t). It’s not completely based on it, which is why I’m not linking the works, but it definitely picked up a lot of hints from it.
> 
> I hope you enjoy your gift, Han! This was a ton of fun and I loved the chance to try something new. :)

Jackie was two minutes away from locking up and heading to bed when she heard the dinging of the bell over the front door.

She bit back a sigh as she paused in wiping down one of the shelves behind the front desk. Really? This late at night? She knew she went to bed earlier than most innkeepers, but frankly, she had never had a reason to stay up any later. Anyone who was going to stay at the inn usually arrived before six in the evening, and the last time she checked the clock, it was past nine.

She took a few extra seconds to paint a patient smile on her face. Well, it was still business. Things were slow around here, and she could always use the extra money. She turned around, mouth open to greet her potential guest.

Her eyes fell on the door, and she stopped.

There was a child standing just inside, bundled up in an oversized coat, their arms wrapped around a pile of clothes.

A skeleton child. A boy, by the looks of it. When was the last time she had seen a skeleton child?

… when was the last time she had seen a skeleton at all?

He was staring at her, his sockets wide and the lights of them like pinpricks. They made him look like a teenager, while his small, awkward stature made him look closer to four or five. He had a … distance, a hesitance, a suspicion in his eyes that she had never seen in a child before, and he held himself tight and careful, ready to move at a second’s notice.

He was staring, and she was staring back. Well. It was one thing for a child to stare, but she could at least act like the adult. She cleared her throat and tried to smile again.

“Hello, dear,” she said. “Is there something I can do for you?”

She tried to say it in as gentle and pleasant voice as she could, but the boy still tensed, staring back at her as if she were talking down to him. He stood up a little straighter, thought still kept his arms wrapped tight around the clothing bundle in his arms.

“how much for a room?”

His voice was quiet, hesitant, and a little older than she had guessed, but still definitely a child. His words trembled as they came out, as if he were trying to make himself sound older by mimicking what he had heard adults say. She did her best to smile even as her chest sunk.

Runaways were rare around here—in all of the Underground, from what she could tell. She was glad to say that most parents she met were kind to their children, and gave them no reason to want to leave home. She looked him over one more time, giving him what she hoped was a sympathetic smile.

“If you need me to walk you back home, I’d be happy to—”

“no,” he cut her off, so sharply it almost made her flinch. He fidgeted. “i just need a room.”

She stared. He fidgeted more.

“how much?”

Jackie hesitated. The boy didn’t look particularly ragged, like he had been outside for a long time, but he didn’t look like he had just come from home, either. He had more clothes bundled around him than was strictly necessary for Snowdin, especially for a monster with no skin. Like he was trying to carry more with him than he could bring otherwise. Her eyes softened, and she nodded over her shoulder.

“Come with me. I have a room in the back. No charge.”

The boy tensed and stared at her like she had just offered him a basket full of toys. He shifted. “we—i can pay.”

“I know you can, dear, but there’s no need,” she replied.

“i have money,” he said, digging one hand into his pocket while the other carefully balanced the bundle in his arms. “i want to pay.”

Jackie thought of protesting again, but there was something determined, unyielding, in the boy’s eyes, and she got the feeling insisting was only going to drive him further away. She sighed.

“How much do you have?” she asked. He relaxed, just a bit, and pulled out his hand from his pocket to hold out about 20G. She really, _really_ didn’t want to take any of it, but she forced herself to come around to the other side of the front desk. Normally she charged 70G a night for a room, though with inflation, she might raise it to eighty soon. She paused, staring down at him for a moment, before she carefully took two coins from his palm. “That will be plenty.”

He blinked. “but that’s—”

“One small boy isn’t going to take up a very big room, and it’s not very busy right now,” she cut him off. He stopped talking, but still stared at her with the same suspicion as before. She sighed and tried to smile. “Come with me. Back this way.”

He hesitated another few seconds, but when she stepped back behind the desk, he finally gave in and began to follow. But the second he moved, he froze again. She opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong, but a second later, she stopped, too.

Because the bundle in his arms was squirming.

And there was a tiny, skeletal hand poking out through the blankets.

Her jaw dropped.

“Is that—?”

“it’s nothing,” he snapped, jerking the bundle back. The hand had disappeared, and she was almost inclined to believe him before the bundle squirmed again, more fiercely this time, and began to whimper. The boy tugged it closer, tried to shush it, but there was no hiding that noise. Or mistaking it.

“That’s a baby … isn’t it?” she asked, rather stupidly, since it was as obvious as it could be and he wasn’t likely to give her an answer. He flinched, clutching the bundle closer and taking a step back. She moved toward him on reflex, holding out a hand as the bundle cried a little harder. “Are they …?”

“leave him alone,” he all but cried out, holding the bundle—the baby—so tight he almost risked smothering them. “he … i don’t … he’s fine, he’s just tired, i’ll take care of him. i can take care of him.”

There was anger. Protectiveness. But there was also fear.

The sort of fear that she knew, without a doubt, would make him run at the slightest sign of a threat.

She stopped where she stood, and held up her hands in surrender.

“Alright. Alright.”

The boy remained frozen for a good minute. But Jackie was patient, and she waited, and finally, the boys’ shoulders dropped, and he gave a slow, hesitant nod. She walked around the back of the desk, toward the main part of the inn, and she heard his footsteps follow.

She took him to the first empty room she could find—there really were quite a few free, since this was far from her busy season. She opened the door and held it for him. He slipped past her very carefully, holding the baby close the whole time, as if fearing she might try to snatch them—no, _him,_ the boy had said—out of his arms. She did nothing, and a few seconds later he was inside, standing in front of the bed, watching her.

“You get settled,” she said. “If you need anything, my room’s the last door on the left, okay?”

The boy didn’t say anything, and she doubted that he would come get her unless the room caught on fire. But she wasn’t going to get anything better, so with another smile and nod, she closed the door and left him alone.

Well, she left him alone for about half an hour.

Jackie had always been insistent on the value of her clients’ privacy, but this was a bit of a special occasion. Besides, she got the feeling the boy— _boys_ —hadn’t eaten in a while, and she wasn’t going to leave a guest hungry. She whipped up some porridge as quickly as she could and made her way back down the hall.

She paused outside, knocking very quietly. No response. She knocked a little louder. Still nothing. She tried the door, and by some miracle, found that it had not been locked. Maybe he had forgotten. He had looked tired, after all. Tired and rushed. Otherwise, she had no doubt he would have locked it the second she left. She pushed the door open as quietly as she could.

Only to find both the child and the baby curled up on the bed, fast asleep.

The child looked even smaller than before, his knees pulled close to his chest and his arms curled in. He had tucked the baby close in his grasp. She could see both of them a little more clearly now that the baby wasn’t hidden in a blanket and the boy wasn’t actively trying to avoid being noticed.

She wondered if she should call the Guard and ask about any missing child cases. But …

… if he had just been missing, wouldn’t he have asked to use her phone, to call his family?

If he had _wanted_ to go home, why would he seem so intent on staying here, and paying for it, to boot?

She had thought that most parents were kind to their children, but “most” didn’t mean “all.”

Slowly, hesitantly, she stepped inside and set the bowl of porridge on the nightstand. The boy stirred, but didn’t wake. She stood there for another minute, watching them, before she finally stepped out and closed the door behind her.

She closed up the inn and went to bed, but she didn’t sleep. She spent the night staring at the ceiling, picturing the boy’s desperate, suspicious face, the likes of which she had never seen on a child his age. She came up with at least two dozen different things that might have put that look on his face. She didn’t like any of them.

As soon as morning came, she scurried to the kitchen and made a batch of cinnamon bunnies, her sister’s famous recipe. She carried them down the hall and knocked on the door, and when she got no answer, she announced her presence and opened it.

The bed was empty. The boys gone.

And the bowl of porridge sat on the nightstand, licked clean, exactly where she had left it.


	2. pretty princess

There was someone in the shop.

Lop wasn’t sure how she knew at first. Maybe it was instinct. Running this shop for this long—which wasn’t all that long, technically, but she adapted fast—you developed an extra sense for knowing when something is wrong with it. For a few seconds, she just lay there in bed, ears perked, perfectly still as she waited to see whether or not it was just her tired mind playing tricks on her.

Then she heard the faint creak of footsteps on the floorboards on the other side of the house, near the storefront, and what she was almost sure was the faint chatter of voices.

She bit back a groan.

She _really_ wasn’t in the mood for this right now.

Still, it was her shop, and she wasn’t about to let some midnight burglar make off with her stuff while she just listened to it happen. Especially if they were so unskilled as to make noise. She slipped her feet out from under the covers, took a second to stretch, then lowered herself to the floor, gathering her magic around one hand as she made her way, entirely silent, through the halls of her house.

She paused just outside the door leading to the store itself, pressing the side of her head to the wood.

And almost jumped back when she heard two very distinct voices coming from the other side.

“P’ETTY! PAPY P’ETTY!”

“shh. yeah, you’re really pretty, pap, but we gotta be quiet, remember?”

“P’ETTY P’INCESS PAPY!”

Two _children’s_ voices.

The magic around her hand faded without conscious thought.

She pressed her ear closer, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t recognize them. She knew most of the kids in Snowdin, and quite a few in Hotland as well. Her shop was one of the only places to buy toys, after all. But she had never heard these two. She lingered a moment longer, but all she could hear was the older one shushing the younger, a bit more fervently than before. She clutched the doorknob, then slowly, carefully, pushed the door open.

Only to forget exactly how squeaky the door to her shop was.

The children’s eyes were already locked on her when she caught sight of them, and she found herself staring down at two children—two young skeletons—sitting on the floor of her shop, several toys around them.

The older one was small, no older than six, by the looks of it, but he stared at her like a teenager might, fearful yet brave, shifting in front of the smaller one as if in defense. But there was no fear in the younger one’s eyes. He was maybe two, with a plastic tiara sitting on his head—a plastic tiara she had placed on one of the shelves herself a few days before after collecting it from the dump—and he looked at her with the same innocent curiosity most toddlers held. Ten seconds passed, long, lingering, silent, before the little one smiled.

“HI,” he said, lifting a hand in an awkward wave. He lifted his arms out to his sides, then brought them in to pat his head. “’M A P’ETTY P’INCESS!”

“I can see that,” she replied, allowing herself a small smile even as the bigger one watched her with narrowed eyelights. “Do you like that tiara?”

“UH-HUH!”

The bigger one shifted close to the little one—his brother, without a doubt, his body tense, ready to strike out or run at a second’s notice. “he was just tryin it on. we weren’t … we’ll go, just …”

He trailed off. If she looked closely, she could see his bones trembling. He might have been the older of the two, but he was still young. If he really was six, he was very much on the small side.

She grinned and put her hands on her lips, trying her best to look casual.

“Well, of course. I certainly wouldn’t have thought anything bad of two sweet little boys like you.”

The bigger one wasn’t convinced. Despite his small body, the way he watched her reminded her of some of the older monsters she had met who had survived the war, but had never fully recovered. Who still flinched when anyone moved too fast or touched them without warning. Whose scars were all too visible even if they didn’t wear them on their skin.

She paused, then glanced around the shop, forcing her smile to remain on her face even while the boy followed every shift.

“Though, since you’re here … I’ve found myself with a bit too much stock recently. Maybe you’d be willing to take some of it off my hands?”

The bigger one stared, just as wide-eyed as before, but this time, when she took a slow, careful step toward him, he flinched, but did not run away.

She filled up an old sack with clothes that looked like they might fit the two of them, enough cinnamon bunnies to feed the Royal Guard, and a few lighter-weight toys—she didn’t know how close by the two of them lived, but she didn’t dare put in anything too heavy just in case.

The bigger one kept a close eye on her the whole time, and though she tried not to stare, she couldn’t help but sneak a few glances his way, and it only took one or two for the vague sense of familiarity to solidify into a real memory. Jackie had told her the story at least five times, though it had been months since she last brought it up. How a little skeleton boy had showed up in her inn late at night, carrying a baby in his arms. How the two of them had fallen asleep in one of her beds, how she had had every intention of caring for them. How when she woke up, both were already gone.

That had been almost a year ago now.

Lop had assumed—and Jackie had hoped—that they had just been runaways, or perhaps gotten lost on the way home, that they had a loving family to go back to and that was why Jackie had never seen them again. And it was _possible_ that they _were_ just runaways, or lost kids, who had decided to visit her shop in the middle of the night out of curiosity or mischief. It was just very, _very_ unlikely.

Especially given the look in the bigger one’s eyes.

And the ragged state of their clothes, obvious even in the dim light of the shop.

She put in a couple of extra outfits on top of the food and toys.

She wanted, very badly, so, _so_ badly, to ask them to stay. If not with her, then with her sister, who she knew, without a doubt, would take them in even in the middle of the night. Probably permanently. But the bigger child looked as if he would bolt at the slightest wrong move, and Lop remembered what Jackie had said about them disappearing, and the older boy’s protectiveness before that. She knew that even asking might ruin the chance she had. She could tell the Royal Guard about them, in the hopes of them giving them a home … but that might just scare the boy away more, and if they had run away from a bad home and the Royal Guard took them back … any home that was worse than living on their own at such a young age wasn’t one she would ever send a child back to.

Still, she couldn’t resist taking out a piece of paper while the little one was distracted with a toy and writing a note offering food, shelter and supplies anytime they were needed, and slipping it into the bag before she handed it to the boys.

As soon as the bigger one lifted the bag in one hand—which he did successfully, insistently, though with a lot of effort, given his stature—and his brother in the other, they started toward the door. The bigger one looked ready to get out as quickly as possible, but as he nudged open the shop door with his foot, the little one peered over his shoulder, watching her with those same curious eyes. The tiara still sat atop his head, swaying a bit with the angle his brother carried him.

“Bye, Pretty Princess,” Lop said, lifting a hand to wave.

The little one beamed back at her, waving in return even as his older brother continued on his way.

“BYE-BYE!”

The door shut behind them, and Lop was left standing alone in the shop, listening to the echoes of their voices in her head.

She would have to make sure and tell Jackie tomorrow.


	3. up a lazy river with me

As Sans opened his eyes, slowly, without any rush, he thought that this must be what Saturdays felt like to everyone else.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had had a Saturday like that. When the beginning of a weekend had meant he could rest, sleep in—when he had acknowledged weekends at all, except for when school was out and there were more kids running around town. Saturdays were just another day to work, to find food and a place to stay, to keep Papyrus entertained and fed and happy.

But today was different.

Yesterday had been good. Really good. There had been a ton of old, stale food that the local grocer hadn’t been able to sell, and when Sans had asked, he had simply given it to him for free—apparently it would have gone to waste otherwise. Sans barely managed to get it back to the spot near the woods where they had set up their shelter, it was so heavy. But he was smiling the whole way, and even sprinted the final stretch once he spotted Papyrus waiting for him from just inside the line of the trees.

This would keep them fed for a week. Maybe more, if he rationed it right. They wouldn’t have to steal or scavenge, he wouldn’t have to leave Papyrus alone or drag him somewhere he didn’t want to go.

Sans blinked slowly, tiredly, and focused on the warm weight cuddled against his side. He wondered if it really was Saturday today. Probably not. It didn’t matter. It was _their_ Saturday, and he was going to make the most of it.

Namely, by sleeping it away as long as he could.

He let his eyes drift shut, and a long, heavy, content sigh slipped past his teeth.

Apparently a little too loud.

Because a second later he felt the form against his side begin to shift, and in under ten seconds, Papyrus was climbing up onto his chest and poking his forehead.

“SANS.”

Sans bit back a groan, squeezing his eyes shut tighter. No. He could _rest_ today. Papyrus knew that, right? Apparently not, given how he settled even more firmly against his chest, leaning in so close Sans could feel his breath against his face.

“SANS,” he repeated with another poke. “WAKE UP. S’ MORNIN.”

Sans grumbled and allowed himself a smile, opening his eyes just enough to see his brother’s face. “we don’t gotta get up today, pap.”

Papyrus, perched comfortably on San’s chest, frowned. “COURSE WE GOTTA GET UP! S’ MORNIN!”

“i mean we don’t have anything to _do,_ ” Sans said, chuckling.

Papyrus didn’t stop frowning.

“S’ LOTS O’ STUFF TO DO!”

Sans chuckled again, closing his eyes and snuggling down a little further into the worn blanket. “well, right now i’m just gonna sleep.”

He had barely had time to settle into the darkness when Papyrus poked him three more times in quick succession, almost jamming his finger into his eyesocket.

“SAAAAAANS. COME ON. YOU GOTTA HURRY OR WE NOT GONNA HAVE ANY TIME TO DO FUN STUFF!”

Sans bit back a groan and pulled the blankets up a little further over his head.

“you get a head start, bro. i’m gonna sleep.”

“SAAAAAAAAAAAAANS,” Papyrus cried. He poked Sans again, then one more time, and when Sans didn’t respond, he rocked back and forth on top of him, shaking him as much as his own tiny body could manage. “SANS. SANS!”

Sans could hear him taking in a breath for the third cry of his name, but he didn’t give him the chance. He wrapped an arm around him and tugged him down, tucking him against his chest like he did when they went to sleep, pinning him in place with a well-placed hug.

Papyrus balked and squirmed.

“HEY! SANS! LEMME GO!”

“sleep time, pap,” Sans murmured.

Papyrus thrashed harder, pushing against Sans’s weak grip with all his might. “NO, SLEEP TIME OVER! TIME TO GET UP!”

He struggled, kicking and throwing blow after blow, but Sans just lay there, holding on tight, though not tight enough to actually risk hurting his brother. After a minute, Papyrus began to calm, and even with his vision as blurred as it was, Sans could still feel him looking up at him with curious, concerned eyes.

“YOU TIRED?” he asked, tilting his head the other way.

Sans hummed, barely managing to keep his eyes open. God, sleep sounded nice.

Papyrus went quiet, thinking, almost pouting in the intensity of it, before he finally sighed a very long, drawn-out sigh, the sort he had heard from adults when agreeing to something they didn’t actually want to do.

“OKAY,” he said. “BUT LATER WE PLAY LOTS!”

Sans felt his natural grin shifting up a little further. Papyrus tried to frown, but he had never been very good at staying upset when Sans was smiling at him. He pouted a little longer, then sighed again, quieter this time. Sans slipped an arm around him and tugged him, very gently, to rest against him again, and Papyrus didn’t protest.

Just before he fell back up, he felt his brother lean up just enough to touch his teeth to his cheekbone.

“G’NIGHT, SANS.”

Sans held him closer, smiled a little wider, and let himself drift.


	4. are you thinking what I'm thinking

“SAAAAAAAANS.”

Sans adjusted Papyrus on his back as he wiggled and slipped, tilting his head back to look at him but not pausing in his steps.

“yeah, pap?”

Papyrus wiggled again, and Sans readjusted him as he caught sight of his pout. “I’M HUNGRY.”

Sans clenched his teeth and tried to ignore the twisting in his chest. He felt the hunger pains well back up in his own soul, slowing his movements and weakening his grip, but again, he ignored them and hoisted Papyrus a little higher.

“i know, bro. i’ll … i’ll get you some food soon, ok?”

“WANT FOOD NOW,” Papyrus groaned. Silence reigned for a few seconds, before Papyrus kicked his legs. “SANS. ‘M HUNGRY.”

Sans closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again. “i know.”

He could feel Papyrus looking at him, almost hopeful, his head lifting even though Sans didn’t turn his own head to see.

“GET SOME FOOD?”

“soon,” Sans said, trying to make it sound convincing, trying to make himself believe it was true. “i promise.”

“WHEN’S SOON?”

“it’s … soon. soon as i can.”

Papyrus whined. “YOU ALWAYS SAY THAT. BUT ‘S NEVER SOON.”

Well, Papyrus had him there. He didn’t like the idea of being unreliable, of not being someone Papyrus could trust with his promises. But it was hard not to make promises over things that Papyrus _should_ have, even if Sans should know by now that wouldn’t always be able to provide them. Shelter. Toys. Time to play. _Food._

He really needed to find some food.

Sans ignored the ache in his soul and walked a little faster.

“SANS.”

Sans closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then smiled over his shoulder. “yeah?”

“HUUUUUNGRY,” Papyrus groaned, sinking even deeper into his hold.

His tired, desperate eyes made Sans want to die. He looked ahead to make sure that a full meal hadn’t miraculously appeared in front of them in the last few seconds. But it was just snow, like before. Snow and people going about their day. It was still too early for him to risk snatching something from a restaurant or a shop. That was best done during the afternoon rush, when no one was likely to notice two kids making off with a few things they hadn’t paid for. Which meant that until then, he had nothing to feed Papyrus.

Normally, he would have just stayed in their shelter until it was time to get food—normally, he would have gone alone—but Papyrus was fidgety and didn’t want to stay still. So Sans picked him up and headed toward town. Now he was beginning to wonder whether he shouldn’t have just made up a game to play there. Less walking, and less temptation to steal when it would be dangerous.

He clenched his teeth, readjusted Papyrus on his back, then turned his head again.

“hey, bro?”

Papyrus looked back at him with another pout. “WHAT?”

“guess what i’m thinkin.”

“GONNA GET FOOD?” Papyrus asked, his head perking up.

Sans winced and did his best to smile through it.

“nope, that’s not it. guess again.”

Papyrus fidgeted.

“UH … POTATOES?”

“uh-uh.”

“CUPCAKES!”

“you gotta try somethin other than food, bro,” Sans replied, but it was gentle, fond, and he hoped it sounded as apologetic as he felt.

But Papyrus took it well—to his surprise—and made a humming sound synonymous with thinking.

“UH … YOU THINKING OF … SNOW?”

Sans grinned. “we have a winner!”

“YAY!” Papyrus shrieked, throwing his arms up so fast that Sans almost dropped him before he could readjust his grip. “I WON! AGAIN! LET’S PLAY AGAIN!”

Sans chuckled, but just held Papyrus a little tighter and nodded. “alrighty. what am i thinkin?”

“HMM … SNOW?”

“got it in one.”

Papyrus giggled and clapped his hands, and this time Sans made sure to hold onto him extra tight so he could manage a few seconds without holding onto Sans’s neck.

“YAY! I WIN AGAIN! PLAY AGAIN!”

Sans glanced around them. They were pretty far into town now, which meant there were more things to look at. Plenty of things to keep Papyrus busy for an hour, maybe two, if he was very, very lucky. Then, maybe, he would be able to find some food. Somehow. He would figure it out. He always did.

“okay, i got a new one. go ahead and guess.”

“UM … POTATOES?”


	5. if the world ended right now ...

“Have you met the boys yet?”

The question came out of nowhere, breaking at least two minutes of comfortable silence and making Kimi almost jump from the surprise of it. They turned toward Barran, but his attention was focused on a group of children playing a little further into the snow-covered park.

Kimi settled back onto the bench, then looked to the children, blinking, and searched for any two who he could have been describing.

Barran chuckled. “No, none of those. It just reminded me. I’m guessing you haven’t seen them, then?”

Kimi frowned. “Who are you talking about?”

Barran turned to them and smiled. It didn’t look like a particularly happy smile, but it was hard to tell.

“Two boys,” he went on. “Two little skeletons who showed up in town … oh, two, maybe three years ago? Something like that. They were really young back then, from what I’ve heard. Still are. The older can’t be more than eight.”

“Did they move here or something?” Kimi asked.

Barran looked amused, but there was something … uncomfortable, almost sad, about his expression. He shook his head.

“No one’s seen their parents,” he replied. “Most people think they’re orphans.”

Kimi pressed their mouth into a tight line. They tried to remember anyone who had died and left behind children recently. Such a thing was rare nowadays, and news of it tended to spread fast. But they couldn’t think of anything.

“Well, who do they live with?” they asked.

Something pained, yet somehow distant and dull, flashed across Barran’s eyes.

“No one.”

“What?!” Kimi burst. Barran just looked at them, silent. Kimi balked, their mouth opening and closing several times before they finally clamped it shut and shook their head. “They’re just … living on their own?”

“People have tried to take them in,” Barran replied. He had never been particularly expressive, but Kimi knew his face well enough to recognize the faint sadness. “I know Jackie at the inn tried a few times. She even tried to find them after they ran off after staying with her for a night, but no use. If they don’t want to be found, no one can find them, and a lot of people think they never stay anywhere for more than a few days, if that.”

Kimi stared. They looked at the kids in front of them, playing, laughing. They didn’t know any of them well, but they had met all of their parents, they were pretty sure. It was a small enough town. All of them had happy families, good, safe homes to go back to.

They tried to imagine them on their own, trying to find food or shelter or … anything. Would a kid even know what to do to survive? A kid of only _eight_? How would they get money? How would they get anything without someone to help them?

They let out a long, shaky breath.

“That’s horrible,” they murmured. They bit their lip, then shook their head. “Does anyone … someone has to be able to find them, we can’t just leave two children to fend for themselves!”

Barran looked at them again, this time, the sadness more clear. They got the feeling he had been thinking about this for a while. He only ever talked about things like this if they had been building up inside him for too long, and even though he wasn’t one to break down into tears or ramble on, he would at least talk to Kimi about it. He would make it sound casual even if it worried him. He would make it sound like he didn’t care, even though they _knew_ he did.

It didn’t make his apparent lack of interest in _doing_ anything any easier to deal with.

“You know as much as I do now,” he said at last with a small sigh. He turned away, but looked at them out of the corner of his eye. “If it’s any consolation, if they’ve made it this long on their own, I think they’ll be alright.”

Kimi huffed.

“They shouldn’t _have_ to do all of that by themselves.” They crossed their arms over their chest and glared at an empty spot in the distance, as if they could pinpoint the spot where the kids were hiding and draw them out by sheer willpower. They gritted their teeth. “Why wouldn’t anyone have taken them in after their parents died? Or … I don’t know, at least _heard_ that their parents died and gone looking for them?”

“I don’t know,” Barran said, as simply as ever.

“Someone has to know _something,_ ” Kimi all but groaned. They glared a few seconds longer, but when Barran didn’t respond, they turned to face him and frowned. “What is it?”

He was staring off into the distance again, but not at anything in particular. There was a tiny furrow in the center of his brow, probably unnoticeable to anyone else, but obvious to Kimi after three years of learning how to pick it out.

The furrow got deeper, and he frowned. “Just a thought.”

“What?”

He hesitated, glancing at them, then back to the kids, though he didn’t seem to be paying them much attention.

“I talked to Jackie a while after she met them. From what I can tell, she was the first one to see them.”

Kimi raised an eyebrow. “And?”

Barran started to speak, then paused and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Kimi wished he was looking at them so he could see their eyes rolling. He probably didn’t need to look at them to know. They waited, and sure enough, his face begin to soften, as if he could feel their eyes locked on them, unrelenting, pressing without a word. He breathed in, and let it out in a long, slow sigh, before he turned to face them again.

“Do you remember anything happening around that time?” he asked, carefully, like the topic made him uncomfortable. “Something important?”

Kimi blinked. He had said two or three years ago, right? They ran through everything that had happened in the past few years, in their own life, in Snowdin, in the underground in general. They had met Barran, of course. They had started their new job. Their sister had had a baby. And the …

The …

They frowned.

“… I don’t think so.”

They _thought_ there was something else. But they couldn’t think of what it was. It was like trying to see through a thick snowfall, with a sheet of plastic wrap hanging over their face. But … everything else was clear. Everything. Why would one thing feel blurry? Like … like deja vu. Or walking into a room only to forget what you wanted to go in there for in the first place. Or a dream they had just woken up from. Something so obvious, but … somehow still not clear.

But deja vu and forgetting the reason you went into a room, even a dream was never anything important. Not _really_ important. And it couldn’t have been something just in _their_ life, if it had affected Barran, too. So what …?

Barran huffed a laugh, and Kimi turned to face him again to find him smiling and shaking his head.

“Yeah. It was probably just my mind being weird again.”

Kimi smirked. “Yeah, you do that.”

Barran glared, but he couldn’t quite hide his smile.

“Oh, shut up.”

Kimi grinned and nudged him in the shoulder, and with a laugh, they both went back to watching the kids.

But Kimi felt their mind drifting after only a minute of silence, as they took in the kids in front of them in a way they hadn’t before. Granted, after hearing a story like that, hearing about two kids who were still out there, all on their own, they would probably never look at a kid the same way again. But the longer they stared, the more something poked at the inside of their head, gently, then insistently, until finally it cracked through like a raw egg hitting them in the face.

“Barran.”

Barran tilted his head toward them. “Hmm?”

Kimi looked at him in full.

“Have you ever seen any other skeleton monsters before?”

Silence. They sat there, staring at each other, as if they could peer into each other’s minds and see exactly the same thing reflected back from their own.

“… No,” Barran said at last. He swallowed and licked his lips. “But … there must be some. They can’t be the only ones, that would be ridiculous.”

“Maybe,” Kimi murmured, but it felt forced, and faked.

Barran let out a breath, then lifted a hand to give their shoulder a squeeze.

“How would we know about skeleton monsters if they didn’t exist?”

It was reasonable. It was logical. Just as much as everything Barran said. And Kimi had no reason not to believe it.

But they still didn’t.

“I suppose,” they murmured nonetheless.

Barran saw right through it, of course. Just like he always did. He held their shoulder for a few more seconds, then let it go and went back to watching the kids.

Neither of them said anything else until they left the park for home.


	6. body heat

Skeletons weren’t supposed to get cold.

Sans knew this. He had read about it, he had all the facts stored up in his head, but none of them, not a single one, could change how hard his bones were trembling, and how deeply the chill had seeped into every part of his body, so much that it hurt to even move.

And it didn’t change the pained whimpers of the smaller skeleton tucked against his chest.

Skeletons weren’t supposed to get cold, because they didn’t have skin to _get_ cold. They could still _feel_ hot and cold, but it didn’t bother them in the same way as other monsters. They could be in the middle of Hotland or the coldest part of Snowdin, and it wouldn’t bother them.

Unless, apparently, their souls were weak.

Like when they had gone three days straight without any food.

Sans had _tried_ to find food. He had tried _so hard._ But the shops had all been quiet lately, too quiet for him to risk stealing anything, and Papyrus had been running low on patience for being left alone or staying quiet in public places. Every time Sans got the chance to swipe something, he caught someone looking at him, and stepped away before they could throw him out of the shop.

He hadn’t been able to find any small jobs to do either, as hard as he had looked. Just as the quiet time of year made the shops too quiet, it also meant that no one had any jobs they were willing to give to a kid—which were hard to find even on a good day. They had gone one day without food before. They had even gone two. But by the time the third came and went, Sans was finding it more and more difficult even to walk.

Then it took him nearly ten minutes just to wake Papyrus from his nap.

Papyrus hadn’t taken naps in over a year.

Something was wrong with him. Sans knew something was wrong, knew they needed food, needed warmth, but there was nowhere to go, and he was too hungry to think properly.

He was scared.

He didn’t think he had ever been this scared.

When Papyrus finally woke up, groggy and complaining, Sans pulled him out of his makeshift bed—not even a real bed, just blankets on the ground, a kid should have a real bed—and hugged him so tight Papyrus told him it hurt. Sans let go, but clutched his hand, then tugged him forward despite his protests, out of their home and toward town.

They needed … food. Shelter, _real_ shelter. They needed to get warm, they weren’t supposed to be cold, walking hurt, he was so tired, but he had to keep going, he had to help Papyrus.

He thought of going to the inn. Or the shop. But his vision was blurry and the snow was blurring his vision and he couldn’t see where he was going, all he could do was walk and hope he didn’t trip. It was late. Dark. Was it night? He didn’t know. He kept moving, he _had_ to keep moving. Papyrus stumbled along next to him for a while, then finally dropped to his knees, whining, he was tired, he just wanted to sleep, so Sans picked him up and carried him.

He felt like he had been walking forever when he bumped into something. Something … wooden. A wall. He looked up to see the side of a building, he knew this building, he had been inside it before, but he couldn’t remember which one it was. He needed to find … a door, could he go inside, was this place friendly, could he risk it, he had to risk it, he called Papyrus’s name, shook him a little, but he wasn’t moving, he wasn’t even holding on, he was just … limp in Sans’s arms.

No. No no no no _no_ he wasn’t going to fall down, Sans could fix this, he could help him, he … he …

He dropped to his knees, leaning against the wall, and pulled his brother close, cradling him like he had as an infant. He was asleep. Sans shook him again, called him, Papyrus, _Papyrus,_ he was screaming now but Papyrus wasn’t answering, just making little whimpering noises like he did when he had fallen and chipped his leg, he was in pain, but he _wasn’t waking up Sans couldn’t wake him up and he was so cold._

So cold.

He was tired and he needed … but he couldn’t … he tried to stand up, try to find a door, try to get inside, find warmth, _food,_ but his legs wouldn’t move, and all he could do was stay there, collapsed, clutching Papyrus as tears dripped down his cheeks, no, no no _no_ this couldn’t be happening they couldn’t be alone he needed help someone help please help he couldn’t let his brother die he needed him they needed each other he had to keep him had to keep him safe Dad please—

Please …

His eyes closed, the tears freezing on his cheeks, as his head lolled to the side and clonked against the wall.

Cold. Cold.

Cold.

Warm.

There was … warmth. Faint at first, touching him, then it wrapped around him, and the chill of the snow seeping through his pants disappeared to make way for more warmth. Was he in the air? How was he in the air? Why weren’t his feet on the ground? Those questions were important, so why couldn’t he focus on them? Papyrus. Papyrus was still with him, right? Yes, he could feel him, pressed tight to him, he wouldn’t let him go, had to keep him with him, keep him safe, something had picked them up and was taking them somewhere else, but as long as Papyrus was with him, everything would be alright.

Everything … everything would …

The cold faded away, bit by bit, and Sans felt his energy return, just a bit. God, he was tired. He just wanted to sleep. But … he had to see where they were. They stopped moving, they were … sitting down somewhere, they were … on something, something warm, and it was wrapped around them, holding them tight. Sans’s eyes hurt, they had never felt so heavy, but he forced them to squint open, just a bit, ignoring the ache as the light burned into his sockets.

Fire.

They were surrounded by … fire?

No … no, he _knew_ this. This fire had eyes, and a mouth and … glasses, and a nice suit, and it was sitting on a couch, _he_ was sitting on a couch.

The bartender.

Grillby.

They were inside, sitting on … was that a couch? The lights were dimmed, but the bright orange flames around him lit up the room, and Sans swore he could hear another fire crackling close by. He blinked a few more times, tried to open his eyes wider, but they were so tired. He wanted to sleep, but he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep with Papyrus so cold and sick, Papyrus, where was he, he had to take care of him, make him better, that was his job, he was his brother, he had to keep him safe, had to—

Papyrus.

That was him, right in front of him. Curled against … Grillby. Yeah, that was Grillby. Holding both of them, sitting on a couch in front of a fireplace.

Was Grillby the fireplace? No, there was an actual fireplace, and Grillby was … a second fireplace. A second fireplace wrapped up in more blankets than Sans had seen in years, keeping in all the precious heat. Warm and comfortable and _god_ he was warm Sans had forgotten what it felt like to be so warm.

There was a voice, somewhere deep in his head, that told him he needed to leave. Get out of here. He could take care of himself, and more importantly, he could take care of _Papyrus._

But …

Papyrus didn’t look so uncomfortable anymore. He was breathing easier. No more whimpers. His browbone had smoothed out, and there was a tiny smile on his face. He looked … content. Even though he was still sleeping.

Sans reached out with a shaking hand to touch his cheekbone, and Papyrus smiled a little wider, leaning into the touch. Sans felt his own smile grow as his eyes fell shut again.

Safe. They were safe.

The fire—Grillby—held them a little closer, and with his hand still resting against his baby brother, Sans finally allowed himself to sleep.


	7. what's that sound?

He saw it for the first time at the dump, while he was searching for new shoes for Papyrus, to replace the ones he had outgrown.

It didn’t look like much from a distance. Just a flap of rubber, like deflated balloon. It didn’t seem interesting, or useful, but his curiosity was piqued and it was impossible for him to leave the dump without figuring out what it was. So he tucked it into his bag, found several pairs of shoes for Papyrus to try out, then headed back to their spot in the woods.

Finding out how it worked was just as much of an accident.

He had been playing around with it for a few days, without any real intent, and had finally managed to figure out how to put air into it. He had assumed that was the entire purpose of it, and left it on the ground in their current hideout before he left for the day. By the time he got home, he had forgotten about it entirely, and Papyrus’s babbling ensured that he didn’t notice it before his brother sat down right on top of it.

Only to make a loud farting noise fill the air around them.

It took Sans a full ten seconds to assure himself that skeletons could not, in fact, fart.

Then he burst out into laughter so overwhelming he almost forgot how to breathe.

It wasn’t until a minute later that Papyrus realized exactly what had happened, and stared at the rubber thing as if it had personally befriended, then betrayed him. Sans just laughed harder.

For the first week or so after that, Sans was sure that Papyrus hated it. Every time he stuck it somewhere Papyrus was about to sit down, Papyrus would throw up his arms and stomp off, only to come back a minute later, still pouting. But Sans knew his brother better than anyone. He could see the hint of amusement hiding just beneath the surface.

It was just that embarrassment and annoyance overpowered it.

But if it _wasn’t_ him that was sitting on it … if he didn’t have to deal with the resulting embarrassment …

Which was why Sans stuck the thing into his pocket one day when he and Papyrus went out to town.

After their … incident that led to spending a night at Grillby’s, Grillby had invited them back for free meals. He had offered it every day, but the idea of coming back to the same place every day for a free meal made Sans … uncomfortable. Really, the idea of a free meal—that he wasn’t stealing, at least—made him uncomfortable no matter what.

But he was still having trouble finding food, and even if he could put up with hunger himself, he wasn’t going to risk Papyrus getting sick again.

So he agreed to twice a week.

If Grillby put enough food in that one meal to feed them for an entire day … he wasn’t going to say anything about it.

Sans had learned to inflate the rubber thing with one hand, and more importantly, without Papyrus seeing and pointing it out. He finished puffing it up just as they stepped through the front door of the bar, and Grillby, standing near the back, lifted a hand in greeting and went to make their usual order.

Papyrus always picked where they sat, and today, the restaurant was almost totally empty, leaving them plenty of choices. As they walked around, looking for the perfect table, Sans carefully slipped the thing into one of the empty chairs.

It was a silly idea, and it would probably end in either nothing or him losing the rubber thing. But he left it there and sat down at the table Papyrus chose, doing his best to focus on his upcoming lunch.

It usually took Grillby about fifteen minutes to prepare their meal—probably because he put so much food into it—and it took ten minutes for more customers to come in.

Sans knew it was stupid to pay so much attention. But Papyrus had actually been pretty quiet so far—he was amazingly patient when he knew they were getting food out of it, even if he always wiped the grease off the burger and fries before he ate them. Which left Sans bored. So he found his eyes drifting to the new arrivals—an older couple on a date, by the looks of it—as they looked around for a table.

He couldn’t decide whether his luck was terrible or wonderful that they immediately started toward the table with the rubber thing.

That was it. They were going to see it and pick it up and he was going to lose it. Ah, well. He would have lost it eventually. It was just a silly little thing, he didn’t _need_ it. Maybe he would find another one someday.

But … the monsters weren’t looking at the chairs. They were completely engrossed in their own conversation, blabbering away as they each pulled out their chairs. The taller monster, probably a woman, sat down, while the man pulled out his own chair and climbed on.

Sans barely had a second to prepare himself before an ear-splitting fart echoed around the entire bar.

Everything froze.

No one spoke. No one moved. All the customers turned their heads toward the noise and stared, wide-eyed, as the man sat stiff in his seat. Even Grillby, just having stepped out of the kitchen, stood motionless with a tray of food in his hands. It felt like waiting for a bomb to go off.

Then the woman moved, and the silence snapped.

“Tucker!” she chided, putting her hands on her hips. “How many times have I told you not to eat beans for breakfast?!”

The man blinked, looking between the chair and his wife a few times before he scowled back and crossed his own arms over his chest. “Well, it’s not _my_ fault they’re quicker to make than anything else!”

The woman rolled her eyes.

“If you were willing to spend more than two minutes cooking, maybe you could make something that _wouldn’t_ give you gas!”

They kept on like this, back and forth, over and over, but Sans wasn’t paying attention to the words. Partially because he was too busy trying to muffle his snickers behind his hand.

But far, far more importantly, because Papyrus was trying, and utterly failing, to stifle his own giggles in his scarf.

It wasn’t that Papyrus _didn’t_ laugh. He did, and often. He was happy, way more than any other kid in his situation would have been. But seeing him here, sitting in a restaurant waiting for food, safe and warm and soon-to-be fed, laughing at something so _normal,_ it was …

He knew it wouldn’t last. He knew it would never last. They didn’t have the life most kids had. They never would. They didn’t _need_ that life. They were fine on their own.

But seeing his brother so genuinely carefree, so genuinely _happy_ …

Sans couldn’t think of a more beautiful thing in the world.

They were still snickering when Grillby dropped off their food, and though Papyrus immediately began stuffing fries into his mouth, the smile stretching across his face remained just as wide.

For the first time, he didn’t even complain about the grease.


	8. put your clothes on

Sans couldn’t sit still.

He knew that this place was safe. In his head, he _knew_ that Grillby had taken them in before. He had been nice to them, he had helped, and he hadn’t stopped them from leaving, even if he had tried to convince them to stay after he had warmed them up and fed them. He had given them free lunch for months now, and never forced them to stay.

They were safe here. They were only staying for a few nights. Just a few nights, so Papyrus had somewhere warm and comfy to sleep while Sans found a new spot for them to live and looked for more jobs.

It would be good for Papyrus, to sleep somewhere truly comfortable for once. He didn’t get that enough. And Papyrus deserved the best.

And Grillby was all too willing to provide. They had showed up on his doorstep just after closing time, and he had let them in without even giving Sans a chance to explain himself. In five minutes, they were sitting on the couch, wrapped in blankets, with hot burgers and fries sitting on plates in front of them. Papyrus still cringed at the grease, but after the first few bites he seemed to forget about the taste and focus instead on how hungry he had been for the past few days.

Sans had made sure, after that last incident, that they always had at least a little food to keep them going, whether it was leftovers from Grillby’s or something swiped from a store. But sometimes “a little” was all he could manage, and even though it kept them from getting really sick, it didn’t exactly keep them in the peak of health or comfort.

He had forgotten how nice it was to watch his little brother eat his fill and get seconds without even asking.

Even if Grillby probably would have given him seconds before now if Sans had given him the chance.

Grillby didn’t say much. He managed to get along just fine without words. Sans could live with that. It felt weird at first, but it meant that Grillby wouldn’t ask any questions that Sans didn’t want to answer. As soon as they were finished, he showed them his guest room—they had slept on the couch, leaning against him, the last time—and even dug out a few toys he apparently kept for when his young niece visited. Papyrus had never seen so many toys in one place, except for at the shop next to the inn, and he worked off all of his dinner in an hour, running around the room, making up games he had never had the materials to play before.

By that point, it was getting late, and Grillby came in to offer them a fresh pair of pajamas—Sans decided not to ask why he had two pairs that fit—and a chance to clean up before they went to sleep.

Which was what led to Sans sitting on a little stool in the bathroom, fidgeting, trying and failing to calm himself down, as Grillby filled the tub.

It was interesting, watching Grillby prepare a bath. Sans wasn’t even sure why he had a bathtub, given … well. He clearly didn’t like water, but he ran a restaurant, so he must have to deal with it sometimes. He wore thick gloves as he turned on the faucet and plugged the drain, and while Sans stared at him, trying to figure out how the biology of an elemental monster was different from his own, Papyrus leaned over the edge of the tub and ran his hand through the water, giggling and squealing about how warm it felt.

Sans couldn’t remember the last time either of them had had a warm bath. Papyrus had been a baby then. They didn’t get all that dirty nowadays, and when they did need a bath they usually just went to Waterfall and rinsed off in one of the ponds. Papyrus loved it, but it always made Sans nervous, setting aside his clothes and all of his belongings, being completely vulnerable, even if it didn’t last for long.

He jumped as the water shut off, and Grillby turned them with a soft smile and expectant eyes. Papyrus had already started stripping off his own clothes, not even thinking that he might not get them back. Sans did his best not to fidget while Grillby was watching.

It was just a bath. If Grillby was going to do anything to them, if he was going to take their clothes or hurt them or … it was fine. It was all going to be fine.

Papyrus was already standing in front of the tub, stark naked, turning to Sans with wide, excited eyes as he snuck glances at the full tub.

Sans set his browbone.

No. There was no way he was depriving his brother of this.

Still, he couldn’t help but feel grateful when Grillby turned around to gather some soap while Sans tugged off his clothes and tucked them away under the sink.

It was a silly hiding place, but it was better than nothing.

He cleared his throat, and Grillby turned around. He had set out several toys on the side of the tub, and something that looked like bubbles had settled on the top of the water. Sans had heard of that before, even if he had never seen or used it. Bubble bath. Too expensive, and too useless, for him to ever try before.

Gloves still on his hands, Grillby lifted Papyrus by his armpits and set him very carefully in the water. Papyrus giggled the whole time, moving his hands through the water and bubbles as soon as he was sitting down. Before Grillby had the chance to look at him, Sans scurried across the room and climbed into the tub next to his brother. The warm water shocked him, but he could already feel himself relaxing, just a bit.

He had forgotten how nice warm water felt.

“Now,” Grillby said, in that soft voice that somehow sounded like crackling fire as much as it did a whisper. “I’m going to go finish up a few things, but just call if you need me.”

Sans hummed in lieu of a response, and Papyrus was too busy splashing and playing with the bubbles to notice that Grillby had spoken at all.

Grillby left without another word, and Sans allowed himself to relax further, even though a part of him, as usual, remained on edge. They were safe. _Grillby_ was safe _._ And in a few days, they would be out of here. They would be a bit more comfortable, and a bit more full, and they would be out of here, and Sans could take care of everything just like he had before.

“SANS! PLAY WITH ME!”

Papyrus stuffed what Sans could only guess was a rubber platypus in his face, grinning like mad, and a bit more of the tension in his bones slipped away. Sans smiled.

“sure, bro,” he said, then winked. “but there might be a big _bill_ to pay when this is over.”

Papyrus stared. “WHAT?”

Sans chuckled and shook his head, but took the platypus without another word.

He lost track of how long they sat in the water, making up games and stories with all the toys Grillby had given—lent—them, as well as the bubbles all around them. Papyrus loved dunking himself underwater and feeling the water stream out of his eyesockets and mouth, some of the bubbles sticking to his skull when he surfaced. Sans managed to turn scrubbing both of them down with a washcloth into a game as well, making up a song with the names of the bones as he went along. The last of the tension in him faded the longer they played, until he forgot that they were in someone else’s house. That this wasn’t going to last, at least not for more than a few days. This was temporary, just like everything they had, except for each other.

Was this what normal kids had all the time? Warm baths, bubbles, bath toys? Was Grillby supposed to be like a normal parent?

Would it always be like this, if they stayed, like Grillby had wanted? If they had stayed with the lady at the inn, or even the lady at the shop? Would they always be nice? Would they always be welcoming? Or would they change, as time went by? Would their generosity wear down? Would they insist on taking control of more things in the kids’ lives? Take away their freedom, bit by bit? Take away their chances to leave if they wanted, hunt them down and bring them back if they tried to run? Would they start punishing them if they didn’t do what they wanted? Would they promise that everything would be okay even though it wasn’t it hurt it _hurt_ but they couldn’t leave couldn’t get away then they were gone and he could go run get away _run_ —

The water splashed, and Sans jolted out of his trance.

Papyrus had abandoned the toys, now left floating in the water, and was standing up. For a second, Sans thought perhaps the water had gotten cold, but it still felt decently warm. Grillby hadn’t returned. But Papyrus was climbing over the edge of the tub now, his tiny hands hoisting him up.

Sans blinked.

“pap?”

But Papyrus wasn’t paying attention. He was already halfway out of the tub, and though he stumbled a little, he was moving the second his little feet hit the floor. Sans could already see the water dripping from him, soaking the little rug next to the tub, but Papyrus’s eyes were locked on the item sitting on the stool Sans had left.

It might have been innocuous, if it wasn’t Papyrus. But it _was_ Papyrus. And Sans knew that look a little too well.

He raised his hand to gesture him back, climbing out of the tub himself.

“pap, wait, we gotta—”

“I’M A SUPERHERO!”

And that was all the warning Sans got before Papyrus tied a towel around his neck and ran out of the bathroom, stark naked.

Sans stiffened, only halfway out of the tub. But a second later, he heard a faint chuckle and the muffled sound of Grillby’s voice. He couldn’t make out the words, but the tone was clear enough.

Papyrus talking, going on about his new superhero persona. Laughing. Eager and happy and safe.

Sans’s shoulders slumped, and after only a moment’s hesitation, he let himself settle back into the water. Just another minute. Just for one more minute.

This wasn’t going to last. But maybe, for a little while, it could be okay.


	9. maximum heart rate

He couldn’t get away.

He was good at slipping out of people’s grasp, dodging them, but once someone grabbed him, he didn’t have the strength to get away. He knew that. That was why he tried so hard to _not get caught._ And usually, it worked.

But apparently, it couldn’t work forever.

“lemme go! i wasn’t doing anything! let me _go!_ ”

He struggled and thrashed and kicked, flailing his arms, but he knew it was worthless. He knew that even if he managed to hit the Guard holding him, it wouldn’t do any damage.

He had been struggling since they left the shop in Snowdin. They were well into Waterfall by now, and despite all his thrashing, the Guards didn’t even sound strained. They were huge. Huge and furry with armor and weapons and they could kill him in one strike if they wanted to and he couldn’t get away he couldn’t get back to his brother.

His brother.

Pap.

He hadn’t been able to see Papyrus when they pulled him out of the shop. That was good, he had told him to hide, stay out of sight, and he was doing that, he was staying hidden, that was good, they wouldn’t find him, but what if they took Sans away for good, if they took him away and locked him up and wouldn’t let him come back, what if Papyrus tried to leave and look for him, what if he got lost, what if he got hurt, what if he thought Sans had abandoned him?

It had just been a box of crackers. Just one box of crackers, carefully tucked underneath his jacket, like a hundred other boxes of crackers he had swiped over the years. Shopkeepers had looked at him funny before, some had even seen him running off and tried to stop him, but he always managed to get away, he would just keep his distance for a while so they wouldn’t get suspicious and it always worked, it had _always_ worked, so _why hadn’t it worked today._

He kicked and grunted and thrashed but he was small, he was _so small,_ why did he have to be so small, he couldn’t do _anything,_ he couldn’t even focus his magic right, could he shortcut out of here, he had never tried, maybe the Guards would come with him, he could try it but his magic wouldn’t focus and there was nothing else he could do.

They had tried to talk to him when they first picked him up, but he wasn’t listening. He had shouted, he had cried out, but they were _Guards,_ it didn’t matter what he said, no one would stop them, no one _ever_ stopped someone trying to take him away, he was a kid, all they saw was just some angry kid and now all they saw was a _thief_ no one would help him no one would ever help him that was why he had to help himself.

He stopped moving, just for a second, pulled his arms in close to his body, trying to slide out of their grip. If he could just …

The Guard holding him readjusted him in her grip, tucked against her side, like she was settling a bag of groceries that had started to slip out of her arms.

Sans gritted his teeth and thrashed harder.

“lemme go, just let me go, _please_! ”

The Guard to his right groaned.

“C’mon, kid, everyone in town has seen you stealing at some point or another. You didn’t think we could let it go forever, did you?”

Sans bit back the whine building in his throat and kicked a few more times, shaking his head.

"lemme go, i need … i need to …”

His breath shook as hard as his body. Papyrus. He had to get back to Papyrus. He was alone, he was all alone in that shop, he was probably terrified, what if the shopkeepers found him and thought he was involved and turned him in, too? What if he got scared and ran? What if the Guards kept taking him away and stuck him somewhere and he couldn’t go back and Papyrus just stayed there too scared to move and they couldn’t find each other again he would have nowhere to go no one to take care of him, he couldn’t … he couldn’t …

The Guard holding him sighed, almost in defeat.

“Look, just tell us where you live and we’ll take you back to your parents,” she said, as if she were trying to calm him down. “We can skip going to the King. You’re from Snowdin, right?”

Sans wiggled a little higher, wracking his head for any sort of excuse that made sense. “i don’t—”

He cut himself off. He could feel the Guard adjusting him in her arms.

“What?”

“i don’t!” Sans burst, before he had the chance to think about it. “i live … i’m from the capital!”

Even without turning his head, he could still see the Guards shooting one another a look before both of them looked back to him.

“Kid, we’re not stupid, you’re there all the time.”

Sans tried to think, why was thinking so _hard,_ he tried to stop kicking and seem reasonable but it felt like if he stopped he might never leave their arms, never go back home, never …

“my … my parents are busy!” he managed. “you shouldn’t bother them! i’ll stop, i won’t steal again, just let me go, please!”

The Guard to his right rolled his eyes. But the Guard holding him paused. She was silent for a few seconds, and all Sans could do was hang in her arms, waiting, his breath coming in trembling huffs.

“Rex,” she said, quietly, and he could hear the softness in her voice. “It’s not like he stole that much.”

Another pause, longer than the first one. Sans bit back every wiggle in him, hanging limp, waiting, please, please please _please_ …

Then the other Guard sighed.

And before Sans realized he was moving, he felt his feet touch the ground, and he wobbled as he tried to find his balance.

“Alright, kid,” the female Guard said, giving him a look that somehow mixed sympathetic and stern. “You can go. Consider this a warning, okay? If you need help, if you need … food or a place to stay, just ask. But no more stealing, got it?”

“okay,” Sans breathed, his body still shaking as he stared up at them. He gave a jerky nod. “okay.”

The Guards looked at him for a few seconds, then at least other. They each sighed one more time, almost in perfect unison. Then the male Guard nodded.

“Alright. Go on.”

Sans didn’t give them the chance to change their minds. He turned around and ran.

He hated running. It wasted energy and it made his legs hurt and he was almost to Hotland by now and Snowdin had never felt further away. But he was far too scared to try one of his shortcuts, he didn’t know where he would end up, he couldn’t risk it, he had to get back, get to Papyrus, he would be terrified, he was alone and he might think Sans was gone forever and who knew how long he would stay hiding there maybe he had already run off what if Sans couldn’t find him what if he got hurt what if—

He kept running, faster, faster, his legs hurt, his feet hurt, everything hurt, but he couldn’t stop, had to get to Papyrus, how long had he been gone, how long had those guards spent dragging him all that way, how fast had they been moved, how long had he struggled, he could feel the ground getting colder under his feet, damp ground turning to ice and snow and he slipped but he kept going, can’t stop, have to find—

The shop came into sight in front of him, and Sans burst through the front doors without a pause.

He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, he swore he could even hear murmurs, something about Guards, delinquents, but he didn’t care, let them find him, let them kick him out for good, he didn’t _care._ He just had to find Papyrus.

He sprinted through the aisles, almost running into three different people in the course of a minute, he wanted to scream out his brother’s name but he couldn’t talk he couldn’t _breathe_ he just kept moving where had they been crackers he had been trying to take crackers where were the crackers had Papyrus stayed in the same place was he even still in the store had someone found him had he tried to leave had he tried to find Sans had he—

“SANS!”

And before Sans could even turn around to face the voice, someone barreled into him almost hard enough to knock him onto his butt.

He looked down at the little skeleton—he was still so small, bones rattling, tears streaming down his cheeks, clutching Sans’s rips like he might die if he let go—and felt his arms come up to wrap around him in return. He squeezed him, so tight he might be hurting him, but he didn’t care, he tucked his head close to his brother’s skull and breathed in his warm, familiar scent, felt the thrum of his soul close to his, he was here, he was safe, he was _here._

“SANS!” Papyrus whined through a sob, squeezing him tighter still. “I THOUGHT YOU—YOU LEFT AND I—YOU TOLD ME TO HIDE—I TRIED I HID I DIDN’T LET ANYONE SEE ME BUT YOU DIDN’T COME BACK AND I THOUGHT—”

“shh, shh, it’s okay, pap, i’m here. i’m fine. everything’s fine, okay?” Sans tried not to let his voice crack, but it trembled despite his best intentions, and he could already feel his arms shaking as they gripped his brother even closer against him. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes to soak in the feeling of the only person that mattered tucked close beside him. “i’m back. i’m not going anywhere. not without you. not ever.”

Papyrus whimpered and pressed his face into Sans’s shirt, and Sans just squeezed him more.

He had his brother. And as long as he had Papyrus, as long as they were together, they would figure out everything else.


	10. all i have to do is dream

Papyrus loved drawing.

At least, Sans was pretty sure he loved drawing. He definitely did it a lot. But sometimes Sans wasn’t sure whether he drew because he enjoyed it, or because he didn’t have anything more entertaining to do when Sans left him alone for one of his jobs or to look for food.

Either way, it was a rare day when Sans didn’t come back to their current hideout to one or two or seventeen new pieces of artwork to admire, and to do his best to preserve, even though he was never able to keep all of them for very long. Usually, the drawings were eagerly shoved in his face the second he was within reach. But today, when he got back, Papyrus offered him a brief greeting before returning to his work.

It wasn’t until fifteen minutes later that Sans finally decided to broach the subject himself.

“what’cha drawing, bro?”

Papyrus grinned, but didn’t even glance over his shoulder to where Sans stood behind him. “US!”

“well, that’s obvious,” Sans noted, peering a little closer. He paused and squinted. “ah, c’mon, i’m not really that short, am i?”

“YOU ARE VERY SHORT, SANS. VERY VERY SHORT.”

“still taller than you, tho,” Sans replied with a smirk.

“JUST BARELY!” Papyrus countered. “SOON I’M GONNA BE TALLER AND YOU’LL BE MY LITTLE BIG BROTHER AND I’LL BE YOUR BIG LITTLE BROTHER!”

It sounded silly, but for a second Sans found his attention drifting to how big Papyrus really _had_ become. He was growing fast, and showed no signs of slowing down. Sans had hit his growth spurt already, and though he might get taller—he was only ten, after all—he was beginning to believe he would be stuck short forever. Papyrus, though …

“sure, pap,” he muttered, without really thinking about it. He focused on the drawing again. It had been easy to recognize the two short skeletons standing side by side, wearing the same T-shirts they had been wearing in real life for the past week, since Sans found them at the dump. But there was someone else … _several_ someones, in fact, all around them. Sans leaned closer still and pointed. “who’s that with us?”

For the first time since Sans had gotten home, Papyrus paused in his drawing. He fiddled with the crayon, squeezing it so tight Sans was surprised he didn’t snap it in half.

“I SAW A PICTURE ANOTHER KID DREW A FEW DAYS AGO,” he said, without meeting Sans’s eyes. He fidgeted and pressed his mouth into a thin line. “WHEN WE WENT TO THE PARK. IT HAD THEM IN FRONT OF THEIR HOUSE AND THEIR … THEIR PARENTS WERE WITH THEM.”

Sans flexed his fingers to keep from curling them into his palms. Papyrus glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, but looked away again a second later.

“THEY HAD TWO MOMS. THEY PUT THEM IN THE PICTURE.”

He tilted the crayon back and forth, and for the first time Sans noticed how stubby it was. They had had those crayons for almost six months now. Maybe he could find some newer ones. Papyrus set the crayon down and picked up the drawing, looking at it for a second before holding it out to Sans.

“I DIDN’T KNOW WHO TO DRAW FOR US SO I DREW EVERYONE.”

“everyone?” Sans asked, finally noticing the details on all the figures surrounding the two skeletons.

Papyrus beamed, his frustration apparently forgotten.

“YEAH! ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HELP US WHEN WE NEED HELP. LIKE GRILLBY AND THE LADY AT THE SHOP! AND THE LADY AT THE INN WHO GAVE ME A LOLLIPOP!”

Sans frowned. “when did she give you a lollipop?”

“ONE DAY WHEN YOU HAD TO GO FOR A LONG TIME I GOT BORED SO I WENT TO THE INN AND SHE GAVE ME A LOLLIPOP. AND SOME SNACKS!” Papyrus replied, without meeting Sans’s eyes. Sans felt a brief flash of fear, but pushed it aside. He couldn’t do anything about it now. He could just make sure and keep a closer eye on Papyrus in the future, just in case. Papyrus pointed at the picture again, snapping Sans’s attention back to it. “AND SEE! THIS IS WHAT OUR HOUSE WOULD LOOK LIKE!”

He didn’t need to fill in “if we had one.”

Sans tried to smile, even though it took so much work it made his cheekbones ache. He reached down to rub Papyrus’s skull.

“that’s great, bro. really great. looks like you really had fun with this.”

Somehow, Papyrus smiled even wider. “UH-HUH!”

If he focused on that happy look, it was much easier to pretend the ache in his chest didn’t exist.

“i’m gonna whip something up for dinner, kay?” Sans stood up fully, stretching out the stiffness in his legs. “see if you can finish that for me so we can look at it while we eat.”

“OKAY!”

Sans flashed him one more grin, then stepped over the snow toward the pot he had set up when they “moved” here a few days earlier. He opened the bag at his side and took out the pasta he had … borrowed from the store. It was alphabet macaroni, Papyrus’s favorite. They could never afford it normally, but his brother deserved a treat. His brother _always_ deserved a treat.

He melted some snow and lit a fire underneath the pot, keeping his mind occupied with the process of cooking. But it wasn’t exactly a complicated dish, and after only a minute of watching the macaroni bubble around in the water, he found his mind drifting back to Papyrus’s words, and the drawing that was now all but engraved in his head.

It wasn’t like he had never found himself looking at the other kids, playing in their yards, or walking with their parents, and wondered what it was like. Wondered what it would be like not to live in a different place every few weeks, never a real home, just random spots picked out that he could fix up with blankets for a bed and a pot for a kitchen and a place to put their stuff. Wondered what it would be like not to constantly search for jobs just to afford food, to have to steal the rest.

Wondered what it would be like to have someone to count on when he didn’t know what to do. When caring for Papyrus became too much. To have someone to lean on. To help him.

Someone other than Papyrus who loved him.

But they didn’t have that. They never—they hadn’t had that for a really long time. And they were never going to have it. There was no point wishing for something they would never get.

A house … maybe they could have one of those, someday. And all those people … they weren’t going anywhere. Sans didn’t trust them, not fully, not _really,_ but at least they were there. And they made Papyrus happy. Even if he didn’t know how he felt about ladies giving his brother lollipops when he wasn’t there, anything that made Papyrus happy was an automatic plus in his book.

And even if they didn’t have anything else, even if everything else disappeared … they would still have each other. They would _always_ have each other.

That was something, wasn’t it?

Sans looked over his shoulder, taking in the warm, familiar sight of his brother coloring, humming a little tune as he worked.

Yes. That was something. That was _more_ than something. That was everything that mattered.

In the end, that was all they needed.


	11. whispers

“WHY ARE YOU PUTTING THAT FOOD IN YOUR COAT, SANS?”

Sans loved his brother.

He loved his brother _so much._ He loved every single thing about him, and he wouldn’t change even one.

Unfortunately, even one of Sans’s favorite qualities about his brother—his loud, enthusiastic voice, always ready to comment on each and every thing around them, the voice that distracted him when he was hungry or tired and made his day just a little brighter—made it very difficult to steal something without being noticed.

Sans froze, glancing around them to make sure no one had heard before he tucked the potato more firmly into his jacket. He flashed his brother a smile.

“don’t worry about it, pap. just … keeping it safe.”

“BUT I THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO KEEP EVERYTHING IN THE BASKET UNTIL YOU PAID FOR IT!” Papyrus replied.

Sans had no idea where Papyrus had heard that. Sans certainly hadn’t been the one to tell him. Granted, Sans had done his best not to steal in front of his brother until now. He had done it when Papyrus was very young and couldn’t stay alone for any amount of time, but as long as Sans let him hold some of the more colorful produce while they “shopped,” he never said anything. Now that he was old enough, he usually stayed on his own while Sans went about his day, but he still got lonely, and if Sans _could_ take him with him, he did. But he hadn’t considered that Papyrus knew enough about _normal_ shopping trips that he would notice one that wasn’t.

Granted, they _had_ actually been shopping, for real, in the past. When Sans had money to pay for it. Maybe that was where he had picked it up.

He did his best to keep smiling.

“that’s … most of the time. today’s a special occasion.”

A very special occasion. Called “i’m out of gold and we need something for dinner.”

“OH!” Papyrus perked up, smiling and looking around excitedly. “DOES THE STORE GIVE YOU FREE FOOD FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS?”

Sans clenched his teeth and glanced around as well, searching for anyone who might be close enough to hear. “uh … sure. but only if you’re quiet about it.”

“WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE QUIET ABOUT IT?” Papyrus asked.

Sans hesitated.

“um … because not everyone gets the free food.”

Papyrus frowned. The sort of frown he always got when he perceived some sort of injustice. Dang. Bad move.

“WHY NOT?”

“cause we’re kids,” Sans replied on a whim, and almost sighed in relief when it actually sounded like a realistic excuse. “kids get free food.”

Papyrus hummed in apparent understanding. Sans smiled and tucked another potato into his coat. Only a few seconds later, he heard Papyrus let in a sharp breath, and turned just in time to see him pointing across the floor.

“OH! THERE’S A KID! I’LL GO TELL THEM THAT THEY GET FREE FOOD, TOO!”

He had already started off before Sans grabbed his arm, just firmly enough to keep him from squirming away. “uh, bro, wait—”

“WHY?” Papyrus asked, pausing and looking over his shoulder.

Sans swallowed. “uh …”

His coat shifted from his movements, and a couple of potatoes fell out, clunking against the floor. He let go of Papyrus and bent to pick them up, but before he could tuck them under the fabric, a pair of quick footsteps approached from behind him. He looked over his shoulder and found one of the shop attendants watching him with a quirked brow.

“Um, sweetheart, I’m sorry, but you need to pay for that food before you take it,” they said, both patient and stern.

Papyrus beamed.

“OH! DON’T WORRY, IT’S OKAY! IT’S A SPECIAL OCCASION!”

The shop attendant blinked. Before Papyrus could get out another word, Sans took his hand and started out of the door, nodding toward the attendant, apparently too surprised to stop him.

“sorry. we’re just leaving.”

The rest of the potatoes clonked out of his jacket as he walked, but he didn’t try to stop them. He walked so fast his legs ached, weaving his way around the other customers, tugging Papyrus along as carefully as he could.

“BUT WHY ARE WE LEAVING? DON’T WE GET FREE FOOD?”

Sans started to reply, but stopped, sighing. “special occasion’s over, bro. sorry.”

Papyrus gave him a suspicious look, but said nothing else and followed him out of the door and into the windy day outside. As they slowed down, Sans looked at his brother out of the corner of his eye and felt his eyes soften.

Maybe he should have expected that Papyrus wouldn’t let him get away with his usual … tricks. He had always been observant, even if he was observant about the oddest of things. And he had good morals, even if those morals made Sans’s life more difficult when expressed.

Sans wasn’t about to tell him stealing was okay. The _last_ thing he wanted was to risk Papyrus getting caught and yelled at when he didn’t think he was doing anything wrong. And Sans _definitely_ wasn’t about to yell at his brother to keep quiet. Papyrus’s voice was all he had, it was his favorite way of expressing himself, and all too often, he spent hours with no one to talk to.

It was much less convenient to wait to swipe food until Papyrus wasn’t around—and he doubted he would be able to get anything from this store for another week or two, after this incident. But it was worth it.

Papyrus was worth everything.

“SANS?”

Sans looked down at Papyrus, still clutching his hand. “yeah, bro?”

Papyrus tilted his head. “I’M HUNGRY. WHAT’S FOR DINNER?”

Sans bit back the sigh growing in his throat and forced a smile instead.

“… how do you feel about grillby’s?”


	12. the setting sun

As irritating as it was to make the trek to Waterfall several times a week, especially when it kept him from working or spending time with Papyrus, he was almost guaranteed to find something interesting.

He was also guaranteed to come back wet and a little smelly, but he could deal with that.

Paper products didn’t usually survive the fall into the dump. They were either torn up or soaked beyond recognition by the time he found them. But occasionally he would find a sealed bag with something inside, the water damage minimal. Usually it was books. If he was lucky, it was something Papyrus would enjoy, or even one of the science or math textbooks he had taken to reading when he got the time.

Today, it was a magazine.

Sans hadn’t been sure whether Papyrus would be interested, but the magazine was small and didn’t weigh much and it wouldn’t hurt to bring it back with him. He tucked it in his bag, searched the dump for a while longer, then headed back to their current shelter. He forgot about it until after dinner, when Papyrus said he was bored and Sans pulled it out without a thought.

The second he flipped it open and Papyrus’s whole face lit up, he knew he had made the right choice.

It had been at least a year since he had seen his brother so eager, so excited, so curious, his natural energy all but pouring out as he stared at each page like it was a window into a whole new world. And maybe it was. Sans had seen plenty of human things, but somehow this seemed like the most real glimpse he had found so far.

For humans, this was normal. This was _entertainment,_ writing and pictures and information they absorbed in their spare time. It was more realistic than Papyrus’s favorite picture books, more casual than Sans’s textbooks.

It was … an escape. A way to pretend that this was their life, instead of what they had now.

At least, at first.

“WHAT’S THAT?” Papyrus asked, for perhaps the thirtieth time in the last ten minutes.

Sans tilted his head to follow his brother’s finger. “it’s a car.”

“WHAT’S A CAR?”

Sans paused, pulling a face, running through his memory of human stuff.

“it’s a … thing.”

“SANS!”

Papyrus pouted at him. Sans chuckled and shrugged.

“well, i dunno,” he admitted. “i think it’s a machine that humans use to get around.”

Papyrus frowned and tilted his head. “GET AROUND WHERE? THE SURFACE?”

“i guess so.”

Papyrus looked back at the magazine, peering in closer and running his finger over what Sans were pretty sure were called the wheels. They looked like wheels. Or did humans call them something different when they were attached to cars? Sans leaned in a little, too. He had seen little toy cars in the shops on occasion, probably found in the dump. But there was a human standing next to the one in the picture, and from what he remembered reading, humans were about the same size as monsters.

“IT’S SO BIG!” Papyrus all but shrieked, apparently having noticed the same thing. “WHY DON’T WE HAVE THEM DOWN HERE?”

It was an innocent question, just like everything Papyrus ever asked. And Sans didn’t know _why_ it made him just a little uncomfortable. But it still did.

He cleared his throat and shrugged again.

“i guess you only need them if you need to go a long way.”

“LIKE TO THE CAPITAL?” Papyrus asked.

Sans looked back down at the magazine. “probably further.”

Even without looking at him, Sans could feel Papyrus frowning.

“BUT WHAT’S FURTHER THAN THE CAPITAL?”

A humorless grin twitched at the corners of Stan’s mouth.

“nothing for us.”

“BUT FOR HUMANS?”

Sans swallowed and kept his eyes very firmly on the page. “… yeah.”

There was silence for a good minute after that. Sans could feel Papyrus staring at him, waiting for more of an answer, but Sans didn’t know what to say. They had never talked much about humans before, or about the surface. It wasn’t exactly a priority when they were trying to survive. Why think about something they might never see, after all? Why dream about something like that when Sans would have been perfectly content just having enough food every day?

Why let Papyrus know that not only were most monsters living better than them, but that there was an entire species living outside this place with more freedom than they could ever dream of?

Then Papyrus flipped the page, and Sans snapped out of his trance.

They browsed for another few minutes without talking. Papyrus “ooh”ed and “ahh”ed as usual, and Sans did his best to relax into the familiarity, brushing aside his concerns about something his brother would never see.

But of course, it was hard to look through a human magazine without running into more human stuff.

“OOH! WHAT’S THAT?”

Sans blinked, and peered a little closer. “that’s … the sun.”

“WHAT’S THE SUN?” Papyrus asked, bright-eyed and fascinated.

Sans fidgeted.

“it’s … light. for the humans. on the surface.”

“IT’S PRETTY,” Papyrus said. “CAN WE GO SEE IT?”

Innocent questions. Innocent statements. Didn’t make it any less painful to hear.

Sans cleared his throat so hard he could almost hear the bones scraping.

“it’s on the surface, bro.”

Papyrus frowned. “BUT WHY CAN’T WE SEE IT?”

Sans took several seconds just to find his words again. “because of the barrier.”

“WHY CAN’T WE GO THROUGH THE BARRIER?”

Sans gritted his teeth. “we just can’t.”

“BUT WHY?” Papyrus asked, like Sans had just told him that there was a lifetime supply of ice cream available for free and they couldn’t even go and taste it.

Sans started to reply, then stopped, then started again, then stopped again. Nothing seemed right. Nothing made sense. Nothing seemed a good enough answer for a question his brother shouldn’t even have to ask.

_We’ll get out of here._

The voice echoed in his head as if from a hundred feet away, yet somehow just as clear as it had always been. Sans could almost see the faint smile—no, that wasn’t a smile, Sans knew what a smile looked like, and that wasn’t a smile—the sharpness of the eyesockets, the gleam of anticipation, the burn of unyielding determination.

_We’ll see the sun again._

“SANS?”

Sans jumped, biting back the sound trying to force its way past his teeth. Papyrus stared at him, wide-eyed and baffled. Sans froze, his breath coming in hard huffs. He swallowed.

Then he jerked his head back to the magazine and put his finger on the first thing he saw.

“hey, that one looks cool.”

“WHAT?” Papyrus asked, his attention immediately falling back to the page.

Sans followed his gaze and wondered whether his subconscious mind had been trying to help him for once. He looked at the spot where his finger had fallen and let himself give a faint sigh of relief.

“the car,” he said, tapping his finger on the car sitting underneath the glaring sun at the top of the page. “see? it’s red.”

Papyrus’s eyes lit up, and he leaned in so far he almost knocked Sans’s hand out of the way.

“OOOOH! THAT’S EVEN COOLER THAN THE FIRST ONE! DO YOU THINK IT GOES FAST?”

“probably the fastest,” Sans assured him, smiling a little more genuinely than before.

Papyrus kicked his legs and giggled as he traced over the different parts and tried to imagine what they might do. Sans let himself relax, however briefly, into his brother’s joy, and let his worries from before drift into the back of his mind.

Maybe he could deal with a few questions he’d rather not answer, if it made his brother happy.

That was all that mattered.


	13. name that tune

He had never forgotten the innkeeper.

It had been seven years since that first night, slipping into the one building with lights still on out of desperation, fear of letting his baby brother spend a night in the cold when Sans barely knew how to keep him warm. Seven years since she had offered a room without question, had refused more than a bit of money, had given him food when hunger was the last thing on his mind.

It seemed like a world away now. Food had been a granted then, even though he should have known that it wouldn’t be for long. No matter how much he had lacked in the five years before that, he had always been assured that he would be fed.

There had always been someone to feed him.

But having someone to feed him also meant someone who might try to do other things to him. Someone who might use his basic needs against him. Someone who might force him to do things he didn’t want to do.

No. It was much, much better to be on his own, in control. That was safer.

But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t nice to stay in a house when someone offered.

Even though it had gone on far longer than he had ever thought he would allow.

Two weeks. It was the longest they had ever stayed with another person, and every day had been like pulling out a tooth. But Papyrus was tired and bored and he had seen Jackie in town and she had invited them to stay and it didn’t matter how many years went by, Sans could still remember the woman who had welcomed them into her inn in the middle of the night, sheltered them, cared for them, and somewhere deep down, he thought Papyrus remembered, too.

Two weeks. That was what he had agreed.

And tomorrow, they would be leaving again.

At dinner, Jackie had tried to convince them to stay a few more days. But Sans knew that with her—with anyone—a few days would turn into a few weeks, then into a few months, then she would want them to move in with her and let her take care of them and then they would be _her_ children and he didn’t …

He was fine. They didn’t need her. He could take care of Papyrus, and he could take care of himself. He always had.

Besides, she was busy enough without them, running the inn and taking care of her own young children. She had four now, all of them younger than Papyrus, bounding around the house with as much energy as Sans had ever seen in a kid. She didn’t need two more kids to take care of. Especially when those kids weren’t even her own.

But still. It was nice not having to search for food before he could eat. Nice being warm and comfortable. Nice sleeping in a bed. Nice knowing that Papyrus had other kids to play with, so that Sans, for the first time in years, could just sit on the sidelines and watch—when he wasn’t being tugged over to play as well.

The four little bunnies had gone to bed around nine, but Papyrus stayed in the living room even after they were gone, playing with some of the toys the kids had left out and bouncing on the couch at Sans’s side. Sans had spent most of the evening reading, but now his eyes were tired and he just sat there, watching his brother with a faint smile on his face as he used up the last of his seemingly-endless energy.

It wasn’t ten that Papyrus finally began to slow down, and it took another half hour for him to curl up on the couch at Sans’s side, leaning against his shoulder. Within a few minutes, he had drifted off.

Sans knew that he should probably carry him to bed. But Papyrus had gotten so big that picking him up was a challenge, and carrying him all the way down the hall, when even getting up seemed like far too much work …

Maybe they could just sleep on the couch tonight. Maybe …

“Did he finally wear himself out?”

If Sans had had the energy, he probably would have jumped. As it was, he just tilted his head to see Jackie smiling at him from beside the couch.

“mm,” Sans hummed, because talking was tiring, too.

Jackie chuckled and nodded, then walked around to the other side of the couch to carefully lift Papyrus into her own arms. He was tall and gangly for his age, but she had proven herself plenty strong.

“I’ll take him back to your room,” she explained. Two weeks ago, he would have protested, or at least insisted on going with them, but now, he just nodded. She quirked her head. “Are you ready to go to sleep, or do you want to stay up a little longer?”

Sans shrugged. She smiled a little wider, apparently amused. He didn’t know what was so funny.

“I can bring you some more books, if you like. You can take some of them with you when you leave, if you enjoy them.”

He said nothing, just kept on looking at her with half-lidded eyes. Her smile slipped, and she looked away.

“I know you won’t change your mind, but … please know that you’re welcome here anytime,” she finished. “The little ones love you, and so do I.”

Sans blinked, but even if he had wanted to come up with a response, she just smiled again, then turned around and carried Papyrus down the hall toward their bedroom.

It wasn’t until a minute after she had left that Sans realized she had just told him she loved him.

He tried to remember if anyone other than Papyrus ever had before.

He didn’t move after she left. His bones had begun to ache with the strain of moving around so much, and he felt like all his energy had been sapped out of him, bit by bit, until all he could do was sink into the couch and try not to pass out then and there.

Papyrus had enjoyed the past two weeks to the fullest—as Sans had insisted he do—but Sans had taken the opportunity to look for more jobs around town. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Papyrus with anyone else, but he was having fun with the other kids and Sans couldn’t bring himself to drag his brother away from a good time. Besides, after the first day, Jackie had proven herself to be trustworthy enough. Sans always returned h—to the inn to find Papyrus well-fed and smiling, with at least a dozen stories of fun things he had done throughout the day.

He was grateful for the chance, of course. But it still left him drained. He had picked up four new jobs, two in Snowdin, one in Waterfall, and one all the way in Hotland, all of which would bring him a good deal more gold than they had at the moment. But working those jobs was going to be exhausting, and once they were on their own again, and he had to spend time scavenging and shopping and finding places to stay …

No. _No._ He had already decided that he wasn’t going to stay. He had already decided that was a bad idea. No. They would stay here one more night, then he would find them another place to stay and they would get back to how things had been. How things were supposed to be.

He had done this for seven years. And he would keep doing it for however long was necessary.

He could hear the footsteps entering the room, but he couldn’t force his sockets to open again. They drooped further, and his mind only faintly recognized the dip of the couch beside him, the warm, furry arms wrapping around him, pulling him against a soft body.

The arms moved further around him, scooping under his back and legs until he was almost lying down, but … against someone’s chest.

Cradling. That was what it was called. Like he used to do with Papyrus when he was a baby.

But … Sans wasn’t a baby. He was twelve, he had been taking care of himself for years, he didn’t need this, he was _fine,_ he could take care of himself, he could take care of both of them, he didn’t …

Somewhere above him, Jackie began to hum.

He didn’t know the song, and there were no words. It was just humming, quite and rhythmic and she was moving him now, tilting him back and forth, careful, gentle, it was silly, he was too old for this, he had been too old for this since the day he had picked up his baby brother and walked away from the only home they had ever known, but …

He was tired. He was so tired, and he just wanted to … just for a little bit …

They would be gone tomorrow. They would be back on their own. Tomorrow, he would start his four new jobs and find food and shelter and everything would be back to the way it had been before.

Maybe, just for now, just for a moment, just for a little while …

Jackie cradled him, rocked him, hummed to him, and Sans finally allowed himself to relax into her hold. He turned his head to snuggle his face into her shirt, clinging to the fabric and not quite biting back the whine in the back of his throat. She held him tighter, using one hand to rub up and down his spine as she leaned down and pressed her lips to his skull.

Tomorrow, things would be back to normal. Tomorrow, he would be independent once again.

But now, right now, he cuddled even closer, clinging to her and breathing in her scent and soaking in the sound of her voice. He settled against her like he had never settled against anyone, and she didn’t let him go.

And for the first time he could remember, it was the warm thrum of a soul that finally lulled him into sleep.


	14. smile for me

Sans had never held a real camera before.

He had _seen_ them, of course. Plenty of people had cameras. They were rare, but not _that_ rare, and plenty of families shared one, or borrowed one from a friend. Sans had just never had that chance.

But here it was. A camera, perfectly intact with only a few scratches, tucked inside a backpack he had pulled out of the dump.

He knew he should be looking for other, more useful things, but he took the time to examine it, cleaning it off and peering out at his surroundings through the viewport—he didn’t dare waste film by snapping any photos yet. The backpack was torn beyond repair, and stained and smelly to boot—otherwise he would have brought it back for Papyrus. He had started attending school on and off, and the bag he used to carry his books was just about ready to fall apart.

Only as he thought of that did he realize how late it had gotten. Papyrus got off school around this time, right? Probably. It wasn’t like he had a watch. Either way, it was time he went back to their latest shelter.

Papyrus called it their “house,” just like he had all of their shelters for the past few months. Sans wasn’t sure the blankets and pot and makeshift tent he had pitched near the woods a couple of weeks earlier could count as a house. But then again, he supposed, it wasn’t like Papyrus had ever known any different.

He dumped the backpack, packed up the camera in his own bag, and headed back toward Snowdin.

He felt a slight rush of relief when he saw their shelter in the distance and didn’t see Papyrus there already. He had been there to greet his brother after school every day so far, and he didn’t plan to miss a day if he could help it. He set down the bag next to their tent, unpacking the other items and sorting them away. There wasn’t much—apparently the humans hadn’t thrown out as much useful trash lately—but honestly, the camera would have been more than enough on its own. He used some melted snow to wipe off the surface, pressing the buttons to test them, but doing his best not to actually take a picture.

Once properly cleaned, it looked in even better condition than before. Why had someone thrown this away? Was stuff like this really so common for humans that they would just toss it out? Why wouldn’t they reuse it, make something else out of it, or try to fix it? It didn’t even look like it was broken, and even if it was, couldn’t it be fixed? Did they really—

“SANS?”

Sans looked up, and found his expression automatically softening when Papyrus jogged up to him, smiling, but obviously curious, his head tilted as his eyes locked onto the object in Sans’s hands.

“DID YOU FIND SOMETHING NEW?” he asked, dropping his own worn bag on the ground and closing the rest of the space between them.

Sans couldn’t help but grin as he lifted up his hands.

“yeah. found a camera.”

“REALLY? A REAL CAMERA?” Papyrus asked, leaning in even closer, eyes eager and wide. “ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE SOME PICTURES?”

Sans looked at Papyrus and paused. Then his smile curled into something a little more natural.

“yeah,” he replied. “some pictures of my favorite thing in the world.”

Papyrus frowned and tilted his head. “WHAT’S THAT?”

Sans just grinned wider.

“go stand over by that tree.”

He had never really thought about not having any pictures of Papyrus. It hadn’t exactly been a priority when he was looking for food or a place to stay. He was too focused on making sure they would _have_ a future to think about how they would look back on this part of their lives once they reached it. But Papyrus was growing up fast, frighteningly fast. He was already the same height as Sans, and soon he would be taller. Before Sans knew it … he would be an adult.

They _would_ both be adults, but thinking of himself as such was a lot less shocking than it was for Papyrus.

Looking at him now, he realized that he wanted to remember him like this. Things weren’t exactly great, but even when he had nothing else, he still had Papyrus. The one good thing that never left, no matter how many other things changed.

He wanted to remember him, even if he forgot everything else.

As soon as Papyrus was in position, he lifted the camera and snapped a picture, then turned it around and waited for it to come out the bottom—he had recognized the type as the sort that developed on their own. After a minute, the picture slid out into his hands. An image of Papyrus smiling back at him. Sans felt his chest clench, and before Papyrus could ask to see it, he lifted the camera and took three more.

Only as he started to take a fifth did Papyrus huff and scramble over to him, tugging the camera out of his hands.

“YOUR TURN NOW,” he said, very matter-of-fact. “POSE AND I’LL TAKE YOUR PICTURE!”

Sans chuckled, but let Papyrus take the camera and stuck his hands in his pockets, tilting his head as Papyrus backed up and held the camera to his face.

“OKAY, SMILE!”

Sans raised part of his browbone, confused. “i’m already smiling, bro.”

Papyrus pulled the camera away just enough to frown.

“NO YOU’RE NOT,” he retorted. “THAT’S NOT A REAL SMILE. YOU HAVE TO SMILE FOR REAL!”

Sans almost frowned, even though he wasn’t physically capable of a real frown. He pulled his smile a little wider. Papyrus frowned deeper.

“THAT’S STILL NOT A REAL SMILE.”

He was almost pouting now. Sans stared, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do. He was smiling as wide as he could. What was Papyrus looking for, anyway?

Then, without warning, Papyrus’s face broke out into a wide, very genuine smile of his own.

“OH! I KNOW!”

Before Sans could get out a single word, Papyrus had set down the camera, sprinted across the distance between them, and tugged him into a tight hug.

Sans stood there, frozen, for a long second, before his entire body relaxed, his arms coming down to wrap around his ever-growing brother, his eyes softening as he stared at the boy who had once been a mere baby in his arms.

Then Papyrus’s head snapped up, and he beamed.

“THERE! THAT’S IT!”

It took Papyrus less than three seconds to jerk himself out of his embrace, stand a few yards away, pick up the camera, and snap a photo.

“GOT IT!” he said, lowering the camera to smile at Sans.

Sans only noticed when the photo popped out the bottom how wide his own smile had become.

He stood there for a long while, just staring, before he broke out into chuckles, shaking his head.

Camera or no camera, there was no way he would ever forget the look on his baby brother’s face.


	15. fireworks

It was, Sans realized, the first time that Papyrus had ever seen fireworks.

He didn’t know how he had overlooked it, but at the same time, it was obvious. Fireworks weren’t exactly common in the underground. Big fireworks, the sort that Sans had seen in human books, weren’t exactly safe to set off underground, and they were a challenge to build—and the ones that fell in the dump were always used or damaged. So when monsters talked about fireworks, they usually meant sticks you lit on fire that sprayed little sparks whenever you moved them.

They were still expensive, and rare, and only used for very special occasions.

So they hadn’t exactly been a priority up until now.

But now, seeing the look on his little brother’s face, Sans found himself wishing he had thought of it before.

“WHAT ARE THOSE?!”

Sans soaked in his smile for a few more seconds, then looked out at the group of children in the park, waving their sparkling sticks through the air.

“they’re fireworks, bro.”

Papyrus’s sockets widened, and he stepped a little closer.

“WHAT ARE THEY DOING WITH THEM?” he asked.

“they’re playing with them,” Sans replied, unable to keep the wistfulness out of his voice. “they’re … celebrating.”

Papyrus turned to look at him, tilting his head. “CELEBRATING WHAT?”

Sans shrugged.

“i dunno. i think it’s the new year.”

Papyrus hummed in thought.

“SO YOU SET THINGS ON FIRE FOR THE NEW YEAR?”

Sans snorted. “only sometimes. and only if you’re really careful.”

He wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of Papyrus trying to set something on fire the next time one of their birthdays came along. Unless it was a candle. They had managed to find candles a few times and stick them in whatever food they had lying around, and Sans supposed he would have to teach his brother how to light them at some point. Just … while he was around to supervise.

“CAN I TRY?” Papyrus asked, snapping Sans out of his thoughts.

Sans looked at him, then back to the group. They had only come into town at night because they hadn’t been able to find dinner and had decided to stop by Grillby’s for something to eat. It had gotten dark a couple of hours ago, and Sans had assumed the park would be empty. But he didn’t keep track of the days most of the time, and he supposed it was just his luck that he would forget a holiday.

This wasn’t their celebration, though. It wasn’t their group. He didn’t even know these people, either the kids or the lady watching them from the sidelines with a fond smile. Neither of them belonged here. They never had, and they never would.

“SANS?”

Sans turned to his brother again. There was a pained resignation already glowing in his eyes, as if he knew Sans would tell him it was impossible. As if he knew this, too, would be denied to them, just like everything else that the other kids enjoyed.

Something in Sans’s chest twisted, and his face set.

“follow me.”

Giving Papyrus’s hand a squeeze, he started forward, Papyrus trailing along at his side.

It was a class, by the looks of it. Sans had passed by the Snowdin school a few times, and he recognized the woman as one of the teachers. He tried to hold his head high, like he did when he was convincing a shopkeeper to let him have some of their old food, and quickened his pace.

She turned her head as he stopped in front of her. It was dark, and she probably couldn’t see him well, but her class wasn’t exactly huge, and she must know all her students well by this point in the year. But Sans just smiled at her, his best convincing smile, forcing away the tension trying to build in his bones. He motioned toward the box tucked close to her chest.

“hey, teach, can we get some, too?”

He waited for her to ask who they were, what they were doing there, if their parents knew they were out this late. If they weren’t with her class, then they weren’t supposed to be there.

Best case, she would smile and send them away. Worst case, she would try to take them home herself.

He was so sure of it, as much as he wished it wouldn’t be so.

But the woman didn’t even blink.

She just flashed him a smile, and another for Papyrus, and handed them two little sticks. Then she flicked open a lighter and let the flame touch each of them before stepping back.

He was pretty sure she said something about being careful, but he wasn’t listening.

He was far too busy watching the enraptured look on his brother’s face.

Sans held out his hand, and Papyrus gripped it, beaming up at him, his eyes shining brighter than they had in months. Neither of them said a word as they ran out to where the other children were gathering, waving their fireworks through in the air, making intricate patterns with the smoke, giggling and chattering and it was weird and unfamiliar and part of Sans wanted to run far, far away but Papyrus was still moving and Sans couldn’t bring himself to stop.

Then they were in the middle of it, surrounded by kids, kids their age, was this what other people their age looked like, how long had it been since Sans had spent time around them, been _surrounded_ by them, they had looked so small from a distance, so immature, so carefree, and there they were, waving their sticks through the air and laughing and now Papyrus was laughing too and it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

Sans didn’t recognize the sound bubbling up in his own throat at first. It was like starting up a rusty machine and feeling the unfamiliar buzz of it coming to life. But then he could hear it, his own laugh, not just a chuckle, but a _laugh,_ and he was waving his own stick through the air without even thinking, drawing chemical symbols and atomic structures and constellations he had seen in books and it wasn’t the simple shapes the other kids were drawing but it didn’t matter.

It didn’t matter.

Papyrus was laughing, Sans was laughing, everyone was laughing, and they were a part of it. They were just two more kids in a group of ordinary kids, they didn’t have to go home to blankets in the woods, they didn’t have to figure out where they were going to find breakfast, they didn’t have to get everything they owned from the dump.

They were … just kids.

And for the first time since he could remember, Sans didn’t remind himself that they still had to get food for a late dinner, that they would have to move again in a few days, that they might never be able to do something like this again.

He just squeezed his brother’s hand, waved his little light against the dark air, and laughed.


	16. i love you

“HAPPY BROTHER’S DAY!”

By that point in his life, Sans was more than used to Papyrus randomly shouting things that didn’t make a lot of sense. It was just part of his personality, one of many things that made him unique. In a way, it was like getting a gift. Something to distract him when things weren’t going well, something to make him smile even if he didn’t have anything else.

Still, no matter how many new comments he heard, it didn’t stop him from furrowing his browbone as the words clicked in his head.

“… brother’s day?” he asked, turning to face Papyrus.

Papyrus was, at the moment, standing between two trees that he had nicknamed “the entryway” when they settled here a couple of weeks earlier. He had wandered off about half an hour ago, insisting that he would stay close by, claiming that he had a “secret project” he didn’t want Sans to know about. Now, he clutched a folded piece of paper in his hands, his arms stretched out in front of him.

He beamed.

“UH-HUH!”

Sans blinked. “what’s brother’s day?”

“IT’S A DAY TO CELEBRATE BROTHERS!” Papyrus replied, in the same way he said everything that made perfect sense to him, even if it didn’t register for everyone else.

Sans couldn’t think of anything to say to that, and after a few seconds, Papyrus lowered his hands and stared at the floor, rubbing one foot with the toe of the other.

“WELL, THERE’S MOTHER’S DAY AND FATHER’S DAY,” he started, a little more quietly. Then he lifted his head again and smiled, just as wide. “BUT WE DON’T HAVE EITHER ONE OF THOSE, SO I MADE UP MY OWN! FOR YOU! BROTHER’S DAY!”

Sans felt his face softening, his smile widening into something a little more genuine than the permanent grin constantly tugging up his mouth. Papyrus gave a thoughtful look.

“’SIDES, IT’S SILLY TO ONLY CELEBRATE GROWN-UPS WHEN YOU DO JUST AS MUCH AS ANY OF THEM DO!”

Sans snorted, even though he wasn’t sure whether he found it funny. He wasn’t even sure if it was true, though he got the feeling it was. At the very least, it was easier for adults to get work, and therefore get money, and therefore pay for things.

He pushed himself up from his spot on one of the blankets and crossed the space between them. Papyrus held out the drawing again with that same eager, hopeful grin. It was a little wrinkled from his tight grip, but Sans took it in his own hands like he was holding a butterfly.

It was a card.

A card made with the same cheap paper and old crayons as everything else Papyrus drew, but one that had clearly taken him longer than the half-hour he had been gone. He must have been working on this for days. The front, back, and both sides of the inside had all been completely covered in color.

At first, he couldn’t even make out the individual parts of the drawing from the complexity of it. But finally his eyes adjusted enough to see the smiling skulls amidst the buildings and people and trees, and the little drawing of two young skeletons waving from the bottom of the page.

It didn’t take him nearly as long to make out the HAPPY BROTHER’S DAY, SANS! I LOVE YOU! printed on the inside in bright orange.

He looked back up at his brother, still waiting for his reaction. Sans swallowed the lump in his throat and pulled the drawing a little closer.

“it’s perfect, pap,” he said, clearing his throat when his voice came out quieter and higher-pitched than he intended. He held his head up higher and tried to look stern—an expression he wasn’t sure he had ever worn before, at least around his brother. “i’m a little disappointed, though.”

Papyrus’s face fell, and he stared up at Sans with wide, baffled eyes.

“DISAPPOINTED?”

“yeah,” Sans replied, barely able to keep up the facade for another few seconds when he was genuinely afraid he had upset Papyrus. Finally, he allowed himself a grin. “i mean, i didn’t even know about brother’s day. you had time to make me a gift, but you’re not even giving me the chance celebrate _my_ brother?”

Papyrus blinked. He blinked again.

Then he pouted and gave Sans a small shove.

“SANS! YOU SCARED ME!”

Sans just laughed.

He slid the card into his bag, in the secured area he designated especially for drawings. It deserved to hang up somewhere nice, but that would have to wait until he had somewhere to hang it. As it was, he would probably just take it out every night for a quick look.

He said nothing else about it, but he _was_ disappointed that he hadn’t gotten the chance to make his own celebration. Brother’s Day. That was good. And though some might disagree, Papyrus deserved it at least as much as he did. Sans sincerely doubted he would still be here, going forward as he was, if not for his brother.

Well, it wasn’t like the date was set in stone yet. Maybe they could have a Little Brother’s Day next week.

Maybe, if he worked a few extra hours, he could even afford a cake.


	17. home sick

Sans had never really thought about a house.

Okay, well, he _had_ thought about a house. But in the sense of, “gee, it would be nice if we had a house,” not, “we should really get a house.” It was something that they both _wanted,_ but not something that they could actually _have._

A house would mean that they wouldn’t have to search for a new place to stay every few weeks, or even every few days, at times. It would mean a place that was warm and secure if one of them wasn’t feeling well. It would mean Papyrus wouldn’t have to leave a toy behind if he wanted to pick another, just because there was only so much they could carry when they inevitably had to pack up and leave.

A house would mean not being cold if they couldn’t find food one day.

A house would mean not having to seek out someone who would let them into their home late at night when they couldn’t find anywhere else to sleep.

A house would mean a lot of things, but he had never thought any of those things would actually be _possible._

But it had been a long time since he had really thought about it, really considered it. When he was young, he could only get so many jobs without adults insisting that he should “be in school” or “off enjoying himself” rather than earning money. But he was fifteen now. Some monsters starting working part-time jobs regularly at fourteen. Plus, he doubted that anyone would have helped a kid buy a house, but a teenager … especially an older teenager …

The thought had been rolling around in his head for more than a week now, and as much as he tried to force it away, it refused to move. And the longer it stayed, the more rational it sounded.

He had been home for more than an hour now, and dinner was almost ready—pasta again. Pasta was cheap, and easy, but he could rarely add much flavoring to it. He only had one pot, and no microwave to reheat leftovers, even if he could have stored them in the snow to keep them cool. If they had a real kitchen, if they had enough room to store cooking supplies …

Yeah. This thought definitely wasn’t going to leave him alone anytime soon.

As the pasta simmered, he turned around to where Papyrus had taken to drawing another picture. It was the only varied entertainment he had nowadays. Paper was cheap enough, and he could find discarded, broken crayons easily. He enjoyed it, and he whipped out at least one drawing every day. At the moment, they were stuffed in the bottom of Sans’s pack, folded up to take up less space, but if they had a fridge, or even a wall, to hang them up on …

He cleared his throat.

“hey, pap?”

Papyrus looked up from his coloring, tilting his head.

“YES, SANS?”

“if you could live anywhere, where would it be?” Sans asked.

Papyrus didn’t miss a beat before he broke out into a wide grin. “WITH YOU!”

Sans was caught between snorting and giving him a noogie, so he reached over and did both.

“yeah, same to you,” he said, even as Papyrus tried to swat his hand away. “but where?”

Papyrus kicked his feet a little and twiddled the crayon in his hand.

“LIKE … IN ONE PLACE?”

“yeah.”

Papyrus looked back down at his drawing. It was pretty basic at this point, but it was still in the early stages. He had really been progressing with his drawing skills over the past few years. Sans wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to become an artist at this rate.

After a long pause, he looked back up.

“THERE’S A LITTLE SPOT BY THE EDGE OF SNOWDIN. RIGHT BY WATERFALL,” he started, then paused. “IT’S NICE. IT’S … QUIET, BUT THERE’S A LOT OF STUFF CLOSE BY, AND LOTS OF ROOM TO PLAY OUTSIDE. AND I CAN VISIT WATERFALL IF I WANT. WATERFALL’S FUN.”

It didn’t take long for Sans to figure out where he was talking about. He hummed.

“so you’d wanna live there?”

Papyrus frowned. “BUT WE CAN’T LIVE THERE. THERE’S ALREADY A HOUSE, AND SOMEONE’S LIVING IN IT.”

“but if the house was ours, would you want to live in it?” Sans asked.

Papyrus gave him a confused look.

“BUT IT ISN’T OURS.”

Sans bit back another chuckle. “but if it _was._ ”

Papyrus fiddled with the crayon a little more, staring at the ceiling.

“HMM … YES,” he said at last, nodding to himself, then again, toward Sans. “YES, I THINK I WOULD.”

Sans nodded back. “cool.”

“WHY DO YOU ASK?”

Sans shrugged.

“just curious.”

Papyrus frowned again, that frown that made him look at once ten years older and ten years younger.

“YOU’RE WEIRD SOMETIMES, SANS.”

Sans grinned. “yup.”

Papyrus rolled his eyes, but went back to his drawing without another word. Sans watched him, silent, letting the ideas build in his head even though he didn’t speak any of them out loud.

There was no point getting his brother’s hopes up yet. It wasn’t going to be easy, and it definitely wasn’t going to be quick. He only had a little extra from each of his paychecks as it was. If he took up a few more jobs, maybe cut back on spending …

They might be able to do it.

He found himself smiling and glancing back to Papyrus, who had returned to his drawing. He had flipped over the sheet of paper to the blank side and was drawing a house. It was more detailed, more skilled, than the house he had drawn years ago, but it looked about the same. Still pretty simple. He couldn’t remember what the house standing there already looked like, but he could always learn how to do modifications on his own. And people’s houses went up for sale all the time. If he could offer the right price …

He smiled a little wider.

Yeah. Maybe they really could do this.

Maybe they could really have a home of their own.


	18. midnight hour

Sans wasn’t sure how long it had been since night had fallen. He wasn’t even sure what time it was. It was late, and he hoped that Papyrus had believed him when he told him that he would be home really late, to just go to bed when he was tired and not wait up for him to get back. He was almost sure that he had stayed up anyway.

It had bothered him once, that his brother was losing sleep because of him, but now he just accepted it.

He had been coming home late five nights a week for the past two years, and Papyrus had always been there to greet him.

He had known, from the moment that he decided to start working more, to start saving up money for a house, that it would mean sacrificing time with his little brother. He knew that he wouldn’t be home as much—whatever “home” meant for them at the time—and he did his best to fill in the weekends and his breaks with as much fun as he could. He made sure Papyrus had things to do during the day, food to eat, games to play, toys and puzzles, if he wasn’t going to school. A month after Sans got his first full-time job, Papyrus told him that he had taken to playing with some of the little kids in the park a couple of days a week, and he always had a fun story to tell Sans about something they had done together.

Papyrus had only been eleven then—and he was only thirteen now—but Sans couldn’t say he was surprised that he was good with little kids.

And it made him happy. Happy in a way Sans couldn’t make him. At least not right now.

But soon … soon he wouldn’t have to work so hard. Not as long. He would still have to work, of course, but he had counted the money in his savings just last week. He almost had enough. Just a few more months, and he would have enough for a down payment on a house. And after that … he would just have to keep making enough to pay the bills.

He could do that. He had come this far, and now … now they were really going to have a place to say. A place all their own. A place they wouldn’t have to leave every few weeks.

He had done this. And if he could do this, he could figure something out that would let him pay the bills and still spend more time with his brother.

The night air was crisp, chill and quiet. Snow had fallen earlier that day, but it had stopped now, and the only sound he heard as he walked was the crunch of his own footsteps and the huff of his breath.

Which was probably why it was so easy for him to notice when another set of footsteps appeared behind him.

He stopped, and a second later, the other person stopped, too. He stood there, breathing, building up his magic in case he needed to shortcut away or even throw an attack. He closed his eyes, held himself tall, and in one fluid motion, spun around.

Then he stopped.

A familiar set of eyes, framed by a furry face and two tall ears, stared back at him.

By the look on her face, she hadn’t recognized him until now. He had his hood up, and he had only had this jacket for about six months - it was the first one he had bought with his own money, one that hadn’t either been pulled out of the dump or given to him by one of their temporary caretakers. She stared at him like she might stare at an old friend she had been afraid she would never see again.

But that was ridiculous. They must have passed each other several dozen times around town.

Even if it had been years since they had actually spoken.

She blinked. Sans blinked. Then, bit by bit, her face softened.

“Hello,” she said, and even though it was barely louder than a whisper, it sounded like a shout against the silence of the night.

He shifted, his shoes crunching in the snow.

“… hi.”

Several seconds passed. Jackie licked her lips and smiled.

“It’s good to see you again,” she went on, and he could hear the affection in her voice. No lie. Nothing forced. Just … caring. It sounded strange. She tilted her head. “How are you and your brother doing?”

He cleared his throat. “we’re fine.”

“That’s good,” she replied. Silence again. This time, she cleared her throat, glancing over her shoulder. “Do you … need anything? I’d be happy to give you a room for the night if you need a place to—”

“no,” he cut her off. She froze. He looked down. “no, we’re … we’re fine.”

He tried not to sound angry. He wasn’t angry. Not really. He knew she was just trying to help. But they didn’t need it. They had never needed it, and now …

“we’re gonna have a house soon,” he added as he looked back up.

Jackie blinked, then smiled again, gently.

“Really?”

“i’m buying it,” he said, lifting his head as high as he could, even though he knew he was still shorter than almost every monster around here. “i already saved up almost all the money for it.”

“All by yourself?” she asked. She sounded sad. He didn’t know why.

He frowned. “yeah.”

She looked at him for a moment, just taking him in, then made a sound like a chuckle in the back of her throat.

“That’s really something,” she said, and she meant it. He could tell she meant it, even if it didn’t make sense. “It must have taken a lot of work.”

He felt his cheekbones heat up, and looked away, shrugging. “just saved it up.”

“Well, your brother must be very grateful,” she went on. He glanced back to her. Her expression hadn’t changed. She still looked sad. He still didn’t know why. “He’s lucky to have someone like you, taking care of him.”

Sans’s cheekbones darkened further. He ducked his head.

“i’m lucky to have him.”

Jackie didn’t say anything to that. He waited a while, then peeked up at her again. It was odd, seeing her now. He was almost an adult, legally. It wasn’t like that much would change. He would still work, he would still take care of Papyrus, just like he always had. But she had seemed so scary, when he first stepped into that inn twelve years ago. She didn’t look so scary now.

He wondered if she had always looked like this, and it had just taken him all these years to see it.

“You’re very brave,” she said, shattering the silence again. “But … if you ever _do_ need help … everyone needs help, sometimes. And even if you don’t need it … sometimes it’s nice to get it anyway.”

He wanted to protest, but none of the words in his head made sense. He kept looking at her, and she smiled again, small and sad.

“That’s what people do when they care about each other.”

Sans shifted his feet again the snow. “you don’t know me.”

Jackie shrugged.

“Maybe not,” she replied. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t care about you.”

Sans looked away one more time. He let the silence fall for more than a minute this time. He waited for Jackie to leave, but she didn’t. By now, he probably should have expected it.

Finally, he cleared his throat and looked back up.

“thank you.”

She furrowed her brow. “For what?”

“for giving papyrus lollipops.”

She stared for a second, then chuckled for real, smiling wider, a little less sad.

“It was my pleasure. He’s welcome to stop by for a lollipop anytime he likes,” she replied. “And so are you.”

She knew by now that he never would. But he didn’t say anything about that.

“how are your kids?” he asked after another few seconds of silence.

He could see the affection in her eyes, only slightly different from the affection that showed up whenever she talked about Papyrus.

“Happy and healthy.”

He nodded. “good.”

She barely paused a second before opening her bag, digging around inside.

“Actually, I have something for your brother. And you, too.”

She pulled out a sack, a bigger sack than he would have thought she could have fit in the bag at her side, and heavier, too. But she held it out with one arm as if it was nothing, smiling at him with expectant, hopeful eyes.

She had known him since he was five years old. She must know that there was a good chance he wouldn’t take it.

But she still held it out, and she waited. And finally, on an impulse he didn’t totally understand, Sans reached out and took it.

It was, indeed, heavy, and he almost dropped it before he adjusted his grip and pulled it against his body. Jackie smiled at him, as softly as ever.

“Have a good night, Sans. And stay safe, alright?”

He nodded, almost without thinking. Jackie smiled one more time, then turned around and walked away.

Sans waited until she had disappeared into the distance before he balanced the bag on one arm and carefully pulled the drawstring to open it.

As soon as the top of the sack opened enough for him to see, he almost dropped it.

Gold.

The bag was filled to the brim with gold.

He wasn’t about to dump it out and count it right now, but there must have been … 200G here, at least. Maybe 300, or even more than that. More money than he had ever seen in one place in his life.

Aside from his house fund.

This money … if he put it toward his house fund …

He would have to count it again. He had to be sure that he wasn’t miscounting, that there wasn’t something else in this bag taking up all that space with just a little bit of gold on top. Of course, he could hear the coins jingling inside, see the edges pressing against the cloth all around. But he had to _check._

But if this was all gold … if it was as much as he thought it was …

He wouldn’t have to wait another few months. He could start looking for a house … this weekend. Maybe even make a deal on one, if he worked quickly. Hadn’t the owner of that house Papyrus liked been thinking about selling? He could at least ask. He could finally have the home he had dreamed about for him and his brother. He could …

No. _No._

This wasn’t his money.

It was hers.

He shouldn’t keep this. He should run after her and return it. He couldn’t … he couldn’t take all this money, she had had in her bag, clearly she had been keeping it for something, and he’d be in debt to her for years, it wasn’t his, he could do this on his own, he had been saving up for _two years_ , he could do this.

But …

This money would mean a few more months of time with Papyrus. A few more months with a safe, comfortable place to stay. A few more months without having to work until he wanted to pass out as soon as he saw his bed.

And even if he couldn’t accept it for himself … he could accept it for his brother.

He swallowed hard and pulled the drawstring, closing the bag before tucking it under his arm. It was going to be almost impossible to hide it from Papyrus when he got back to their shelter, but maybe he could at least put off the conversation until tomorrow.

After all, they would need a good night’s sleep if they were going to go house-hunting in the morning.


	19. waking up alone

Sans opened his eyes and shot up so fast he almost fell over.

He jerked his head from side to side, throwing his arms out, searching for anything next to him, but all he could feel was a … pillow, a giant pillow, he was sleeping on a giant pillow and there wasn’t any snow nearby and Papyrus, he couldn’t feel Papyrus, he was gone, someone had taken him, or he had wandered off and something had happened to him, Papyrus _never_ wandered off in the middle of the night, he had to find him, he pushed himself off the pillow and struggled to his feet, maybe Papyrus had left the forest but Sans couldn’t see the trees he couldn’t see anything everything was missing something had happened something … he …

He …

Sans blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness around him, and he made out the faint shape of the walls, the floor, the window.

The mattress he was standing next to.

The panicked racing of his soul began to slow, and his breaths felt a little less like they were trying to suffocate him.

Right.

They had a house now. A house of their own.

And their own beds.

In their own bedrooms.

Neither of them had been sure about the idea of sleeping separately when they finally moved in. They had been sleeping side by side their entire lives, and it had never been a problem. But they decided to give it a try. It was a new space, and they might as well see if it was actually worth it to have their own rooms—the house had come with them, after all, might as well give it a go. Besides, Sans was happy that Papyrus finally had a space of his own, a space he could decorate without having to worry about tearing everything down a few days or weeks later.

And decorate Papyrus had. Posters hung, all his books and toys lined up against the wall in perfect succession. He had repainted a few things as well, too—the last owner hadn’t exactly left the rooms in the best condition, but hey, it was cheap, and it wouldn’t be too hard to fix up. They wouldn’t be able to afford high-quality furniture for a while yet, but Sans had managed to find a bed frame to start Papyrus off. Papyrus had also made a list of all the things he wanted to get in the future, once they could afford them.

Sans had no idea where one could find a “race car bed” in the underground, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying.

Maybe he could find someone who did custom furniture orders.

They had an old couch, and a kitchen table, and that was about it downstairs. It felt big and empty and a little lonely, walking through it now. But they had only been living here for a few days. It would get better, Sans was sure. They just needed time to adjust.

And enough money to buy decorations, of course.

But without having to put so much money away in savings, he should be able to save up for more furniture without much trouble.

And, of course, some “room-warming” gifts for Papyrus.

Papyrus.

He was safe, wasn’t he? He was alright. He was just down the hall from him, like they had planned. But … it wouldn’t do any harm to check on him, would it?

Just a quick check. He would be in and out in under a minute.

He crept over his bedroom floor with careful steps, still not sure where all the creaky floorboards were. He opened his door and made his way down the hall—god, why had he wanted to buy such a big house anyway? Sure, Papyrus had liked it, it was his dream house, but it was _huge_ —tiptoeing even more carefully than before. Papyrus had taken the room closer to the stairs, probably to make it easier for him to bound downstairs every morning, and Sans had been glad to give it to him—especially since Papyrus woke up early no matter what day it was, and Sans would really like to sleep in when he got the chance.

He paused in front of the door, trying one more time to assure himself that he didn’t need to do this, he should just go back to bed, Papyrus was _fine,_ Sans had tucked him into bed himself, he was alright, he would have come to get Sans if something was wrong, wouldn’t he?

But his hand moved anyway, turning the knob and pushing the door open as slowly as he could.

He stepped inside, turned his head, and felt his shoulders drop so fast he almost collapsed on the spot.

There he was.

Lying on his back under the blankets, his arms and legs splayed out in all directions, his mouth open as he shifted in his sleep, apparently in the midst of a dream. Judging by the faint curl of his mouth into his cheekbones, probably a good one.

Sans could already feel himself smiling in relief.

Papyrus was fine. Papyrus was safe. Papyrus was right here.

Sans could go back to his own room now. He could sleep knowing that his brother was sleeping just down the hall from him. He could … but …

But …

He couldn’t make his feet move. He didn’t _want_ to move. He didn’t want to go back to his own room, even if Papyrus was so close, even if he knew that, he couldn’t _feel_ it, couldn’t hear his breathing or the thrum of his soul. Couldn’t feel him pressed close to him.

But he couldn’t slide into bed with him now. It was small and Papyrus was all sprawled out, and besides, he just _couldn’t._ If Papyrus had crawled into bed with him, that was fine, sure, but Sans crawling into bed with Papyrus, he …

He couldn’t go back to his room, and he couldn’t get into Papyrus’s bed.

His eyes drifted downward.

Well. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been sleeping on the ground for most of his life anyway.

He walked back down the hall as fast as he could without running, snatching up his own pillow and blanket and carrying them back into Papyrus’s room. He laid them down on the floor as close as he could get to Papyrus’s bed. He knew the chances of him getting stepped on in the morning were astronomically high, and he was probably going to regret it then, but for now, he didn’t care.

As he settled his head on the pillow and pulled the blanket over him, closing his eyes, he could already feel his bones relaxing, his soul slowing its steady beat.

There. _There._

His brother was right next to him. He was fine. He was safe. He was _right here._

And nothing bad was going to happen to him.

Not as long as Sans was here.

He let out a long, heavy breath and settled his head a little more firmly against the pillow, letting his mind hone in on the thrum of the soul just a few feet away.

Within a minute, he was asleep.


	20. tears

Even after it was over, Sans had no idea what had brought it on.

If he had, he would have found a way to stop it.

Or, at the very least, he would have made sure he was out of the house when it began.

They weren’t doing anything in particular. They had spent the last week repairing a TV they had found in the dump, and now it was finally working. Not that there was anything to watch—it wasn’t like the underground had an excess of channels—but they had collected a few DVDs and Sans had bought a beat-up old DVD player from Gerson on a whim a month or two back, in the hopes that they would someday have something to plug it into.

Papyrus had put one of the DVDs in a little while ago. Sans wasn’t sure which. He wasn’t paying attention. He was tired, as he usually was on the rare days when he didn’t have to work, and he could feel the pull of sleep tugging at his sockets.

Surely Papyrus wouldn’t mind if he took a nap right here. There was nothing to do today, after all. Papyrus would protest, there was _always_ something to do, but there was nothing Sans _had_ to do. He could just rest for now. Just lean into the cushions of the couch and let the chatter of whatever movie Papyrus had picked lull him to sleep.

Everything was fine. They were safe. Everything was okay.

Which was why it made no sense whatsoever when he tried to close his eyes, only to feel tears dripping out of his sockets.

He blinked his eyes open, sitting up a little as he felt them more clearly. Yes, those were definitely tears. Warm and smooth, falling off the edge of his jaw, leaving streaks on his cheekbones. He was crying. Why was he crying? Nothing was wrong. He was fine, everything was fine, but he was sitting there, crying, and the tears were coming faster now, and he could feel the sob building in his throat, what the _hell,_ what was wrong with him, there was nothing wrong, he had just said everything was fine so _why couldn’t he stop crying._

Suddenly, the chatter of the TV stopped.

“SANS?”

Papyrus. Papyrus was here, Papyrus was _right there,_ what was he _doing,_ he couldn’t let his brother see him like this, he couldn’t let him see this, he shouldn’t have to deal with this, whatever was wrong, whatever had messed him up, it wasn’t Papyrus’s problem, he needed to leave, he pushed himself up from the couch but his feet wouldn’t move, all he could do was stand there with the tears coming more strongly, dripping off his jawbone, and now Papyrus was standing, too.

“SANS, WHAT’S WRONG? SANS, ARE YOU OKAY?”

Of course he was okay. He was okay, he was _okay,_ and he tried to say that but his voice wasn’t working, he couldn’t make a sound come out.

“SANS!”

He sounded scared. Sans couldn’t see him but he knew that voice, Papyrus was scared, Papyrus was worried. Worried about him.

But nothing was wrong. Everything was fine, everything was _fine,_ they had everything they needed, he had good jobs, they had a house, they had food, they were both healthy and safe, they even had furniture and decorations and Papyrus had new books and toys, they had more than they had ever thought they would have so _why was this happening._

He shook his head and started to speak, trying to say that everything was alright, maybe he could still shake this off, say that everything was fine, this was just some weird quirk, he just got something in his eye, Papyrus would just tell him that he had stuck entire objects in his eye without a problem but at least it would be _something_ and it would change the subject but he couldn’t make his voice come out.

He was breathing faster now, way too fast, he didn’t even need _air_ so why was he breathing so fast, everything was blurry, he couldn’t see he was shaking he was dizzy this was all wrong this didn’t make any sense he just wanted it to stop _why wouldn’t it stop_.

Then something touched him, and he froze.

He couldn’t move. Why couldn’t he move something was holding onto him something was keeping him in place what was it something was wrong he had to get away he had—

No.

He was warm. And … there were arms around him. Thin, bony arms, with thin, gentle fingers. Fingers he had watched grow from the tiny baby hands poking out from under a blanket so many years ago.

His head was pressed against a ribcage, his skull tucked under someone’s chin.

And there was a soul thudding right against the side of his head, thrumming and alive and familiar and …

Papyrus.

His brother.

And as soon as the thought hit him, the tears came twice as fast.

This was stupid, this was ridiculous, why was he upset, this didn’t make any sense, he was _fine,_ everything was fine, better than it had ever been, but he couldn’t stop crying, he couldn’t imagine _ever_ not crying, he felt like he could cry until he died and still not run out of tears. He wanted to pull away, to shake his head, to shake this off, but he couldn’t move and his body didn’t _want_ to move he was safe here he was happy here everything was perfect as long as he was here even if he never stopped crying again.

Papyrus didn’t say a word. He just stood there, holding him, squeezing him, while Sans all but bawled into his shirt, none of this made any sense it felt wrong but it felt right and he never wanted to leave his brother’s arms again.

He cried. Papyrus held him, and he cried.

And finally, after what felt like hours, the tears began to trickle away.

Sans swallowed a few times, forcing back the sobs that had yet to force their way out. He blinked to get rid of the remaining tears. He let his body go limp in Papyrus’s arms, and bit by bit, Papyrus loosened his grip. Sans could feel him tilting his head down, feel his eyes locked on the top of Sans’s skull, pained and worried and filled with more love than Sans deserved.

“SANS?”

Sans closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then tilted his head up and smiled.

“yeah, bro?”

Papyrus blinked. He stared down at him with baffled, concerned eyes, tilting his head and pressing his mouth into a tight, uneven line. “SANS, ARE … ARE YOU …”

“am i what?” Sans cut in, smiling a little wider. “am i sans? yep, still sans.”

He had already known Papyrus wouldn’t laugh, but he had hoped he might make him roll his eyes or pout in frustration. But he didn’t. He just stood there, staring down at him, looking sadder than he had in months, if not much longer.

“SANS …”

Sans tried to laugh, and even though it barely came out as more than a huff, he still kept smiling.

“that’s my name,” he said. Then he glanced down at the spot where his face had been pressed into Papyrus’s shirt, reaching out and picking at the damp fabric with a light whistle. “whew, way to make a mess of things. how bout you put on a new shirt and then we go see if the shop has any more of those cinnamon bunnies? i could really go for one of those right now.”

Papyrus opened his mouth, as if he might say something else. But Sans was already stepping away from him, toward the stairs, get away, he just had to get away, he just needed a minute, he was fine, this was stupid, everything was _fine,_ he didn’t need to go blubbering all over his brother.

For a few seconds, Papyrus’s mouth hung open, silent, frozen. Then he closed it and gave a small, solemn nod.

“ALRIGHT, SANS.”

He didn’t believe him, just like Sans had known he wouldn’t. But there was nothing else for Sans to say. He flashed Papyrus a smile he knew wouldn’t look convincing, then turned around and bounded up the stairs toward his room.

He could feel Papyrus’s eyes on him the whole way, but he didn’t turn around until the door was shut behind him.


	21. remember when

Papyrus had started going to school more often after they moved into their house, and Sans had adjusted his work schedule so he could walk him to school in the morning and spend time with him in the evening. He still had to work weekends pretty often, but for the most part, their schedules matched up.

It was strange, but nice, to see Papyrus doing something so normal. School was never a requirement—Sans had made it very clear that if Papyrus ever got bored, or unhappy, or for any reason didn’t want to keep going to school, he didn’t have to. Sans had picked up pretty much everything in a standard curriculum from his reading over the years, and the rest he could pick up from the library. Besides, he had his own ideas as to what kids “should” learn, and why that was apparently the same for every kid, despite their differences in personality and interests. He knew Papyrus could learn everything he needed to at home if need be.

But Papyrus liked school. Most of the time, anyway. Sometimes the other kids teased him, and he wanted to stay home for a few days. Sometimes the other kids kept teasing him, and Sans tried to convince Papyrus to take up homeschooling permanently. But Papyrus always wanted to go back.

Sans supposed it made sense. Sitting at home all day was boring when you didn’t have anyone to spend time with, and Papyrus _did_ meet other kids at school, even if he didn’t seem to have any consistent friends. School was something relatively new and different, and it kept Papyrus entertained.

Besides, Papyrus was already fifteen. Assuming he stayed in school until the usual age of graduation, he only had three years left.

After that … well, they would figure out what to do.

But the occasional bullying and sometimes-boring school days weren’t what was bothering Sans at the moment. It wasn’t the irritating teachers who didn’t understand the way his brother learned, how loud he talked, how energetic it was. It wasn’t even the anxiety of not knowing whether someone would shatter his brother’s bright, innocent spirit.

It was the family tree assignment that Papyrus had received as homework.

Sans didn’t exactly have much experience with school—okay, any experience—but he was pretty sure this was the sort of thing typically given to younger students. But apparently Papyrus’s biology teacher was a little unconventional, and thought that discussing the way hereditary characteristics expressed themselves across generations would be a good way to begin this particular unit. Sans could see the issues this might cause just from knowing a little about Papyrus’s classmates, but apparently the teacher had found a way to include adopted and blended families in the assignment as well.

At first, Sans had thought that was his way out. But Papyrus very quickly insisted—as he had already told his teacher—that he wasn’t adopted. So he should be able to do the assignment just fine.

Sometimes Sans caught himself wishing his brother wasn’t quite so unfailingly honest.

But mostly he blamed himself for just nodding without thinking when Papyrus handed him a blank sheet of paper and a pen and asked him to write down all he knew about their family tree, before running back up to his room to do the rest of his homework.

And now Sans was stuck, sitting on the couch, leaning toward the coffee table, staring at that blank sheet of paper in the hopes that it would suddenly come to life and fill itself with something that made sense.

He balanced his elbows on his knees and his skull on his fingers, fighting off the growing panic as he tried to decide whether it was worth it to come up with some half-convincing lie if it meant potentially breaking Papyrus’s trust.

In a small way, he was relieved. Papyrus had only been a baby when they came to Snowdin, not even a year old, but Sans had still feared that he would remember their life before. Even in small ways. Even though Papyrus seemed to believe that they had always been on their own, and hadn’t pressed when Sans dismissed his questions as to who had taken care of Sans before Sans was taking care of him.

But by all evidence, Papyrus didn’t remember. Not anything. He didn’t remember the heat of Hotland, he didn’t remember what their old house had looked like.

He didn’t remember who they had lived with.

Sans wasn’t even sure if he would have remembered if he hadn’t been so young.

After all, no one else did.

Sans put a hand to his forehead and stared down at the paper like it had personally offended him. Honestly, he ought to march up to that school and throw that assignment back in the teacher’s face. Didn’t everyone around here think that he and Pap were the last skeletons anyway? Didn’t everyone assume that their parents had died at some point, and that was why they were on their own? It was insensitive, that’s what it was. Just flat-out insensitive.

Even if Papyrus wasn’t the least bit upset about it.

He had never been upset about it. Even when he was little and he noticed that all the other kids seemed to have parents, or at least adults who took care of them. If nothing else, there were at least other people of the same _species,_ even if they were rare. But there were no other skeletons, unless they were doing a very good job of staying hidden. Just him and Pap.

Even when Papyrus had wished they had a bit more of a normal life, even if he wished they had had a bigger family, he had never seemed sad about being the last skeleton.

Another thing that Sans found relieving, even if it was in a completely different way. It was … satisfying, to know that the one who had made them wasn’t missed. To know that the world was going on perfectly well without him. To know that despite how highly he thought of himself and his accomplishments, no one had noticed when he vanished from existence. The world adjusted without him, proving once and for all how little he was worth.

And Sans wasn’t about to resurrect him, in any way, even in the form of a stupid school assignment. Honestly, even if he wanted to, he wasn’t sure he could. Papyrus’s assignment was meant to include physical descriptions of the people on your family tree, and all Sans could remember was a tall skeleton and the expressions he had worn. And a lab coat. Probably.

He couldn’t remember the details of his face, or his movements, those little quirks you usually picked up about people with whom you spent a lot of time. He could remember a few things he had said, crystal-clear, but everything else was … blurry. He wasn’t sure he remembered his voice right. With every year that passed, everything got a little blurrier, a little further away.

It was a very good feeling.

But he knew that it would never completely go away.

There weren’t any photos of that time in their lives. Even if there had been, they would be gone now. They would have been erased like everyone’s memories, and besides, Sans wouldn’t have taken them with him.

He had never checked whether the house was still there. Maybe it was. Maybe someone else had moved in by now.

Or maybe it had disappeared like everything else.

He had never checked. He didn’t want to know.

Sometimes he wondered whether they could have stayed there. Whether they could have lived in that house rather than searching for shelter in random parts of Snowdin and the surrounding areas. But Sans hadn’t wanted to stay. He had wanted to get away, far away, as far away as he could, and he had walked until he got to Snowdin and his legs were tired and he was hungry and Papyrus was fussy and he knew he had to find somewhere to sleep and the inn was the first place he saw.

He didn’t want to go back to the house, but he wasn’t ready to build a shelter on his own.

That, he would do the next day. Trying and failing two dozen times before he built one that worked, only to have to move it a week later when too many people noticed their coming and going to the same spot.

He didn’t know why he didn’t want anyone to find them. It had seemed so important then. Maybe he was afraid that someone would make them go back, even if there was nowhere—no one—to go back to.

Maybe he was afraid they would serve as a reminder for someone to remember.

He didn’t want anyone else to remember.

Even if that meant he was the only person who couldn’t forget.

Besides … _he_ had never been their family. Sans had heard that word enough times in the past fourteen years to know that whatever that man had been to them, it wasn’t family.

Family was the people who loved you. Who helped you. Family supported you. Family was there for you. Family let you try things on your own, let you be independent when you wanted to be, but stayed close by to help when you needed it.

Family cared about you, even when you couldn’t understand why.

Sans froze, and blinked. Then he blinked again. He looked down at the sheet of paper before, bit by bit, the thoughts solidified in his mind.

He picked up a pen.

Fifteen minutes later, Papyrus poked his head over the top of the railing on the second floor, tilting his head and giving Sans a hopeful smile. Sans smiled back and held up the paper. Papyrus beamed and bounded back down the stairs, his feet thudding with every step, until he all but skidded to a stop in front of Sans, snatching the paper out of his hands.

He had never been the quickest reader, but he skimmed the words Sans had scrawled onto the page in under ten seconds, his eyes flicking across each line as he took it in. And with each line he finished, his eyes lit up more.

Papyrus looked back up, his whole face glowing with joy.

“THIS IS PERFECT! THANK YOU, SANS!”

Sans barely had time to blink before Papyrus had bounded up the stairs and into his room, likely already planning the rest of his assignment. He was a good deal taller than Sans now, but his movements held just as much carefree enthusiasm as they had ten years ago, and Sans could feel his smile in every step he took until the door shut behind him.

The tension drained from Sans’s shoulders, and he felt his mouth curl into a relieved grin as he flopped back down onto the couch.

It had been years, far too many years, since Papyrus had handed him the drawing of two skeletons, standing in front of a house that didn’t exist. But Sans still had it, now tucked away in one of his bedroom drawers. And every now and then, he would take it out, and hear his little brother’s much-younger voice describing what he had drawn.

Two little skeletons, with the people of Snowdin standing around them, offering a hand, a meal, a lollipop, or even just a smile. Always there, whenever they needed it, no matter how many times they were denied or pushed away.

That had been all the family Papyrus had needed then.

And apparently, it was all he needed now.


	22. count the stars

“so what is it?”

“YOU’LL FIND OUT WHEN YOU OPEN IT.”

“can’t you just tell me now?”

“THAT WOULD RUIN IT! YOU HAVE TO OPEN IT!”

“but I’m gonna open it in a minute anyway. why not just tell me first?”

“BECAUSE THAT’S NOT THE WAY IT WORKS!”

“why’s that? it’s not gonna be any more of a surprise when i unwrap it than if you just tell me.”

“JUST OPEN IT ALREADY!”

Sans snickered as Papyrus pouted and crossed his arms. It didn’t matter how old he got. Papyrus still reacted the same to teasing, and no matter old _he_ got, Sans never seemed to be able to resist giving it.

He genuinely considered making another joke, or putting it off a minute more, just to see Papyrus a little more riled up. But there was a limit to how silly he could get without genuinely frustrating his brother, and besides, he was curious to see what Papyrus had gotten him.

It was only the second year he hadn’t gotten a drawing for his birthday. Not that that was a bad thing—Papyrus’s drawings were his most treasured possessions. But he knew that Papyrus would have liked to get him something else from time to time, but with how much they moved around, it simply wasn’t worth it to get him something he wouldn’t be able to keep for long.

But now they had a house. They had a place to store things. They actually had _room_ to have random junk they didn’t need. Before, Sans knew that even if he picked up something useless to show his brother, they wouldn’t keep it for long. But nowadays, he could pick up a trombone from the dump on a whim and lug it home with him, even though he had never played a musical note in his life.

In fact, he _had_ dragged home a trombone, just last week. And was now spending some of his free time figuring out how to play it.

Maybe that was what Papyrus had gotten him: another musical instrument. It wasn’t like Sans had asked for anything in particular, or even expressed passing interest in anything for a while. Useless junk was fun, but they had everything they needed, and he was … content. As content as he had been … well, probably ever.

Papyrus was fidgeting again, frowning impatiently, so Sans shook himself out of his thoughts and reached down to tear the paper off of the thing in front of him. Apparently Papyrus hadn’t been able to find a box big enough to hold the gift, so he had just wrapped the paper around the oddly-shaped thing and stuck a bow on top. Sans didn’t mind. It looked neat.

He was just about to make a joke about the shape reminding him of a mutated tuba when he pulled off the last of the paper.

And he stopped.

It didn’t click at first. After all, he had only seen pictures in human magazines, and even then, very rarely. And the device had been partially disassembled to fit underneath the paper.

But he still recognized it. How could he _not_ recognize it? He had been admiring them since he learned what they were. A luxury even by human standards, technology monsters had never bothered to invent, because they would never be able to use it.

He swallowed the lump in his throat.

“is this a …?”

He stared for a few seconds longer, then let his gaze drift up to meet his brother’s, his sockets so wide they almost hurt.

Papyrus cleared his throat.

“IT’S A TELESCOPE,” he finished, once he realized that Sans wasn’t going to. He fidgeted and looked away. “I FOUND IT AT THE DUMP.”

“intact?” Sans asked, blinking a few more times as his eyes flicked between his brother and the telescope.

Papyrus stared at the ground.

“WELL … NO. BUT IT DIDN’T TAKE TOO MUCH WORK TO FIND SOMEONE WHO DID MECHANICAL REPAIRS. AND SHE DID IT VERY CHEAP, TOO!”

Sans’s eyes locked more firmly on his brother, his browbone furrowing.

“pap … that must have taken a while. how long have you been working on this?”

Papyrus fidgeted even more obviously, clearing his throat and standing up a little straighter, even as his eyes remained locked not the floor.

“OH … JUST A FEW MONTHS. FOUR. MAYBE SIX. OR SEVEN. SOMETHING LIKE THAT. ANYWAY! I KNOW THAT YOU CANNOT REALLY SEE THE STARS DOWN HERE SINCE WE ARE UNDERGROUND AND THERE AREN’T ANY STARS BUT I THOUGHT YOU COULD SET IT UP AND USE IT FOR SOMETHING SCIENCE-Y SINCE I KNOW YOU LIKE THAT SORT OF THING AND—”

“pap.”

“WHAT?” Papyrus squeaked, jerking his head up, blinking, staring at Sans with wide, concerned eyes. His shoulders fell, and his mouth pressed into a tight, nervous line. “DO YOU NOT …”

He trailed off, and before he could even think of finishing, Sans stepped forward and reached up to rest a hand on his shoulder.

“i love it, he said, letting his emotions bubble out in his voice and in the warm glow of his eyes. “it’s … it’s perfect.”

Papyrus blinked. Then he blinked again. Then he straightened up, holding his head so high that Sans almost—almost—missed the look of pure relief that fell across his face.

“WELL OF COURSE IT IS! IT IS A GIFT FROM ME! AND I ONLY PICK OUT THE MOST INCREDIBLE GIFTS, ESPECIALLY FOR MY BROTHER!”

Sans chuckled, and Papyrus beamed, turning to the telescope and rambling on about all he knew of its specs, even though he didn’t seem to understand what any of those specs meant. But Sans wasn’t listening. He was far too focused on the gleam in Papyrus’s eyes, the tilt of his smile, the bright, happy energy all but pouring from every inch of his skull.

It was the same look he had felt on his own face every time he gave Papyrus a present himself.

It was … weird to see it on someone else’s face. Especially on his brother’s. But he couldn’t mistake that look for the world. He had worn it too many times. The expression of someone pleased by seeing someone else pleased, someone who was happy just to make someone else happy, someone proud of their ability to make someone they loved smile.

It was one of Sans’s favorite feelings in the world.

He had just never imagined that his brother would enjoy it as much as he did.

Sans was the big brother, after all. It was his job to take care of Papyrus. It was his job to make him happy, his job to keep him safe and secure and give him things that made him smile.

But … if Sans wanted all of that … maybe it made sense that Papyrus would want it, too.

Papyrus was grown, after all. Almost. He _physically_ grown, at least. Even though he would always be “little” in Sans’s definition of the word, no matter how tall he got. He would always be the little brother, and Sans would always take care of him. And Sans had never much liked being on the receiving end of care. Not when he was supposed to be the one doing the caring. But … if doing things for Sans made Papyrus happy, then maybe Sans could work past that.

He looked down at the telescope, then back up to Papyrus, smiling a little wider.

After all, all he had ever wanted was to make his brother happy. And this was a small price to pay to put a smile on his face.


	23. something in your eyes

There was a difference between being naive and being unobservant, and it was entirely possible to be the first without being the latter.

Sans had always known that. But there were certain things he just never expected his brother to notice.

“WHY DOES ONLY ONE OF YOUR EYES GLOW?”

Even if it should have been obvious from the beginning.

He looked up from his book—he hadn’t really been reading, just staring at the pages—and blinked up at Papyrus, standing in the middle of the living room with a thoughtful, curious look on his face.

“huh?” he asked as he tried to remember what Papyrus had said to snap him out of his thoughts in the first place.

“YOUR EYES,” Papyrus repeated, raising one hand to point at Sans’s sockets. “WHEN YOU USE YOUR MAGIC, SOMETIMES I SEE ONE OF THEM GLOWING, BUT NOT THE OTHER ONE.”

Sans felt, for a split second, like his soul had turned to stone.

He swallowed. He swallowed again, quietly, careful to hide the motion from his brother. Then he blinked and tilted his head.

“huh. how ‘bout that.”

He had known, deep down, that his own dismissal wouldn’t stop his brother’s curiosity. But old habits die hard.

Papyrus frowned. “WHY DOES IT DO THAT?”

Sans resisted the urge to clear his throat. He shrugged. “i dunno.”

He expected Papyrus to roll his eyes and groan at Sans’s blatant nonchalance, how could he not care about something that seemed so _important,_ could he just take things seriously for once?

But he didn’t. He kept frowning, and he looked at Sans a little closer.

“YES YOU DO.”

Sans hadn’t thought that three words could make him feel like he was falling into a bottomless pit. But really, if anyone could do it, it should be the most amazing person he knew.

“YOU DO,” Papyrus went on, after a few seconds of Sans just staring. “YOU HAVE THAT FACE WHEN THERE’S SOMETHING YOU KNOW BUT YOU DON’T WANT ME TO KNOW SO YOU DON’T TELL ME.”

Sans swallowed. He swallowed again, and again, but there wasn’t anything to swallow, he was a skeleton, he didn’t _need_ to swallow, he didn’t even have the biology to do it like other monsters did, but he couldn’t stop.

Papyrus’s face softened into something almost sad.

“PLEASE, SANS. I … IS THAT NORMAL FOR SKELETONS? I’VE NEVER MET ANY OTHER SKELETONS, SO I …”

He trailed off. Sans yanked himself back up, clinging to a metaphorical wall. He took a long, deep breath.

“it’s … it’s just me, pap,” he said, and it felt like tiny insects crawling over his arms. “not other skeletons.”

“HOW DO YOU KNOW?” Papyrus asked, without missing a beat. His browbone furrowed. “HAVE _YOU_ MET OTHER SKELETONS?”

Actually, regular tiny insects would have been nice, now it felt like tiny insects made of ice cubes were crawling all over his arms, under his shirt, up his neck, there couldn’t actually be little bugs made out of ice all over him, could there?

Papyrus fidgeted and frowned a little deeper.

“I HEARD PEOPLE SAY THAT THERE WEREN’T ANY OTHERS. THAT WE WERE THE ONLY ONES. I HEARD THEM SAY THAT THEY HADN’T SEEN ANY OTHER SKELETONS FOR HUNDREDS OF YEARS BEFORE WE CAME ALONG.” He looked at Sans again, hopeful, confused. “BUT THAT CAN’T BE TRUE. WE HAD TO COME FROM SOMEWHERE.”

Sans didn’t say anything. He could have spoken, he could have thought of something and fixed this, but he couldn’t make himself speak.

“DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE CAME FROM, SANS?” Papyrus asked, so innocent, he was all grown up but he didn’t know any of this and Sans never wanted to tell him.

He swallowed again.

“no.”

Sans must have told a thousand lies over the years. Of course, this would be the one that fell short.

Or maybe he was just underestimating his brother yet again.

“YOU’RE LYING,” Papyrus said. It wasn’t a question. “YOU’RE LYING TO ME, SANS, WHY ARE YOU LYING TO ME?”

Sans tried to swallow one more time, but his throat wouldn’t work. He shook his head. “i’m not lying, pap—”

“YES YOU ARE!” Papyrus cut him off, taking a step forward, his hands curled into fists under his favorite gloves. “WHY ARE YOU LYING TO ME? IF YOU KNOW WHERE WE CAME FROM, WHY WON’T YOU TELL ME? IF YOU KNOW, WHY SHOULDN’T I KNOW?”

The line of his mouth trembled, and his eyes shimmered with unshed tears.

“DO YOU … DO YOU THINK I’M TOO STUPID TO KNOW?”

Sans almost fell out of his chair.

“what!? no, pap, i—”

“I’M NOT A BABY ANYMORE, YOU KNOW!” Papyrus went on, even as Sans searched for the words to assure him. “I … I CAN DO THINGS BY MYSELF! ALL THOSE TIMES YOU WENT OUT DURING THE DAY, BEFORE WE HAD A REAL HOUSE, I TOOK CARE OF OUR HOME! I MADE SURE IT WAS CLEAN AND I KEPT PEOPLE FROM FINDING IT SINCE I KNEW YOU DIDN’T WANT THEM TO FIND IT AND SOMETIMES YOU WERE GONE WAY LATER THAN YOU SAID YOU’D BE BUT I STILL TOOK CARE OF EVERYTHING! I CAN DO THINGS! I CAN! I’M NOT STUPID!”

“i know you’re not—”

“BUT YOU ACT LIKE I AM! YOU ACT LIKE I CAN’T DO ANYTHING, YOU NEVER TELL ME ANYTHING IMPORTANT, I JUST WANT TO KNOW WHERE WE CAME FROM AND YOU KNEW ALL THESE YEARS AND YOU NEVER TOLD ME! WE HAD OUR OWN FAMILY AND YOU DIDN’T EVEN TELL ME ABOUT THEM!”

And that _burned,_ it was like being stabbed in the chest and Sans knew he didn’t have skin to break or lungs to pierce but he could _feel_ them torn open and it hurt like nothing he had felt in tears and he was standing now, his bones shaking, his head shaking along with them, _no._

“he _wasn’t_ our family—”

“BUT HE MADE US!” Papyrus shouted back, and even though he didn’t have a face a name to attach to it, Sans _did,_ he could never completely forget it no matter how hard he tried, he was still there, in the back of his mind, haunting him, _taunting_ him, he would always be there even if everyone else got to let him go. “IF HE MADE US THEN I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT HIM, RIGHT? WHY WON’T YOU TELL ME? WHY DOESN’T ANYONE ELSE KNOW ABOUT HIM? WHY WON’T YOU TELL ME, SANS? WHY WON’T YOU—”

His voice died, as quickly as if it had been sliced off with a knife.

Silence.

“SANS?”

Sans didn’t notice his head had fallen until he was staring at the floor, his breath shaking, everything was shaking, even his legs barely held him up.

“SANS?” Papyrus repeated, stepping closer, he was right in front of him now but Sans couldn’t look up. “SANS, IT’S … IT’S OKAY. IT’S OKAY.”

Sans drew in another breath and shook his head, harder, so hard it hurt.

“no … no, it’s …”

The words had barely passed his teeth before Papyrus’s arms were around him, hugging him, holding him, like Sans had held him so many times, clutching him close to him, his head resting right over his soul.

“IT’S OKAY,” Papyrus whispered, stroking his fingers over Sans’s skull. “YOU DON’T HAVE TO TELL ME RIGHT NOW. IF IT HURTS, YOU DON’T HAVE TO TELL ME.”

Sans tried to shake his head again, but he could barely bring himself to move. He gritted his teeth.

“i …”

He deserved to know. He had always deserved to know, if he wanted to know he _should_ , but Sans didn’t want him to, he didn’t want to think about it, that man didn’t matter anymore, he was gone, he was gone and forgotten and they didn’t have to live with him he couldn’t hurt them anymore and all he wanted was for his brother to grow up without all that pain.

Papyrus wasn’t the little baby he had carried out of the house all those years ago, he _knew_ that, he knew it wasn’t the same as pretending to a toddler that they had always lived on their own, skirting around any questions he didn’t want to answer, it was different, Papyrus was grown now, his baby brother was _grown_ but Sans still wanted to protect him but how could it be protecting him if it was hurting him so much?

But how could he tell him? How could he make him face all the pain even Sans didn’t know how to deal with? How could he make him believe that _why_ they had been made didn’t matter, it didn’t matter because they were so much _more_ than that, how could he tell him without him thinking that maybe _he_ had been right, they were nothing, they were just there to be tested on, they weren’t real _people_ and no matter how many times Sans told himself it was a lie a little voice in his head always wondered if it wasn’t true.

“SANS,” Papyrus broke in again. Sans shivered. Papyrus tugged him closer. “I LOVE YOU.”

Sans’s breath hitched in his throat, and he squeezed his eyes shut tighter. But Papyrus just held him a little more firmly, still so gentle, so careful, he had always been careful he always knew Sans was fragile even though Sans had never told him, he knew so many things even if Sans had never wanted him to know, he couldn’t hide it all, he knew he couldn’t hide it, no matter how badly he wanted to.

Papyrus rubbed a hand up and down his spine.

“I LOVE YOU,” he repeated. “YOU’RE … YOU’RE MY FAMILY. YOU’RE … YOU’VE ALWAYS BEEN THERE. I DON’T NEED ANYONE ELSE TO BE MY FAMILY. I HAVE YOU. AND YOU’RE THE BEST FAMILY I COULD EVER ASK FOR.”

There were tears dripping onto the top of his head, and tears in his eyes and he didn’t know which was which but it didn’t matter, he just wanted to stay here forever, clasped in his brother’s arms, he was safe here, everything was perfect, nothing mattered, it didn’t matter what happened as long as Papyrus was here.

The hand on his spine continued to move.

“I’M HAPPY, SANS. AS LONG AS I’M WITH YOU. I’M HAPPY HOW THINGS ARE NOW. I DON’T … EVEN IF I KNOW WHERE WE CAME FROM, I WON’T WANT TO LEAVE YOU. I WON’T LEAVE YOU, SANS. NO MATTER WHAT. I PROMISE.”

Sans felt his bones creak as Papyrus hugged him tighter still.

“I LOVE YOU.”

Sans finally let out the sob building in the back of his throat. “i’m sorry … i’m sorry …”

Papyrus rocked him, very gently, back and forth, back and forth, his fingers coming up to stroke over Sans’s skull like Sans had done for him, all those years ago.

“IT’S OKAY, SANS,” he whispered, like his voice was the only sound in the world. Or, at least, the only sound that mattered. “EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.”

Sans let out a long shuddering breath, closed his eyes, and nodded.

Someday, he would tell him. Someday, he would tell him everything.

But for now, he relaxed in his brother’s arms and let the rest of the world drift away.


	24. cuddle

The lady closed the door, and Sans let out a trembling sigh.

Alone. They were alone.

They were safe. They were warm. They were _safe._ And now they were alone.

And Papyrus was still crying.

Sans looked down at him, cradled in his arms, just as he had been since Sans stepped out of the house. The blankets made him look even smaller than he really was, even though he was kicking them off now. Sans took a deep breath, pushing his other thoughts aside, and held him closer, shushing him as gently as he could.

“shh … it’s okay, pap … we’re fine now, everything’s fine, it’s okay …”

But Papyrus was still crying, sobbing, he wasn’t screaming, it had been worse, it had been _so much worse,_ but it still hurt and Sans just wanted to make him stop hurting.

Maybe he was tired. They had been walking for a long time and Papyrus probably hadn’t been able to sleep with how fast Sans was moving. Maybe he was bored, or overstimulated. Or understimulated? That was a thing with babies, right? Maybe he was scared. Maybe he didn’t know what was going on any more than Sans did.

Maybe he was hungry. How long had it been since he had eaten? How long had it been since _Sans_ had eaten? He couldn’t remember. This whole day was … fuzzy. Everything was fuzzy, his whole life was fuzzy, if he thought about it really hard he could remember it but it was like looking through the fog. The only thing that never faded was Papyrus. His brother. Take care of his brother. That was what was important. That was the only thing that had ever been important.

That was the only thing that would ever _be_ important.

Because … it was just them now, wasn’t it? He had thought about it earlier, when they left, it was just them, they didn’t have to deal with anyone, they didn’t have to be scared of anyone, they were _okay,_ but …

… It had felt good before. Relieving. But now …

Now it was real. Now it was like leaving one bad world only for another to crash down on top of him.

They didn’t have a house. They didn’t have any food or clothes or toys or …

They couldn’t go back to the house. They could _not_ go back to the house. Sans didn’t know why, it was empty now, there was no one there, he was gone, he was _gone,_ but … he couldn’t go back. He had wanted to get as far away from that place as he could and he _had_ and now that he had done it he was never going back.

So they would have to figure something out on their own.

But how the hell was he supposed do _that_?

He was … that lady didn’t even take him seriously at first. For a second, he thought she was going to try to take him back to his parents, but he didn’t _have_ parents, none he wanted to go back to, none he had ever thought of as _parents,_ and now … now he didn’t have any at all, did he?

The people he had seen earlier, on his way out of Hotland … they didn’t know who he was talking about. He said the name, the name _everyone_ had known, and it was like he was talking about a stranger. _Everyone_ had known the Royal Scientist, even if they had never met him. And they just … forgot.

Even though he didn’t understand it, even though it still scared him, a part of him couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that even if they tried, no one would ever be able to take him back to his “parents” again.

But … he could deal with all of that later. He would _have_ to deal with it later, but now … now there was just them. Just Sans and Papyrus. They were hungry, they were tired. They were scared. They were alone.

But they were safe.

And they were together.

On an instinct he didn’t even know he possessed, Sans began to rock his baby brother, back and forth, back and forth, humming a tune he made up on the spot, giving off a calm he didn’t really feel. They were alright. No one was going to hurt them anymore. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to find food or shelter or … anything for a while, but no one was going to hurt them, and that was what he had wanted, right? That was all he had ever wanted.

They would be okay. He would make sure they were okay.

Bit by bit, minute by minute, Papyrus’s cries faded. First to whimpers, then to sniffles, then to a quiet, sleepy stare that Sans returned with a smile. Papyrus’s own mouth tilted up at the corners. Sans didn’t care whether that counted as a smile. It was good enough.

He sat back down on the bed, still holding his brother close, staring down at him with all the love he felt burning in his soul.

“i’ll take care of you,” he whispered, letting the words engrave themselves in his own head even as they slipped past his teeth. He nodded to himself, running a hand over the baby’s tiny skull. “i’ll keep you safe, okay? keep you safe. no matter what.”

Papyrus blinked tired eyes up at him. Maybe he was too young to understand the words. But it didn’t matter.

Sans clutched him a little closer, smiling as he laid down on the bed, settling Papyrus against his chest. He had never been allowed to sleep this close to his brother before. It was nice. It was nice to feel him against him, to soak in the lively thrum of his soul, to know that he was here, he was fine, and he wasn’t alone.

That Sans wasn’t alone either.

Sans wrapped his arms around him, adjusting himself against the covers, and closed his eyes. He let out a long sigh, like letting a weight off his shoulders, even if he knew he would be taking on another as soon as he woke up.

“i’ll protect you. i promise.”


	25. close to perfect

When he woke up, he was already moving.

At one point in his life—at most points in his life—he would have jolted awake the second someone touched him, and definitely when they lifted him up. But now he woke slowly, groggily, debating every couple of seconds whether he even wanted to wake up at all. He was comfortable. He was warm. He was held securely, but not too tight, against a strong, familiar body. A body he had once cradled against his own chest, just as these arms now cradled him. He could feel the thrum of a soul against his ear, a soul he had treasured from the first moment he saw it, floating in a tube, now almost two decades ago.

The soul that had stayed with him no matter how bad things got.

He pried his eyes open and blinked up at the face above his own.

“… bro …?”

“SANS!” Papyrus whisper-shouted, looking down toward him, blinking a few times before he frowned in obvious disapproval. “WERE YOU FAKING THAT WHOLE TIME?”

“faking what?” Sans murmured through a yawn. He could feel each of Papyrus’s steps, hear the creak of the wood as they made their way up the stairs.

Papyrus looked at him for a moment, searching his face for something he apparently found. His frown softened.

“HMM. I SUPPOSE YOU WEREN’T,” he decided at last. Then he huffed. “YOU FELL ASLEEP ON THE COUCH AGAIN. THAT’S THE THIRD TIME THIS WEEK!”

Sans yawned again and settled a little more firmly into Papyrus’s hold.

“hm. interesting.”

“NO IT’S CERTAINLY NOT INTE—OH, NEVERMIND. JUST … DON’T DO IT AGAIN!”

They both knew very well that Sans would probably do it again within the next three days. But neither of them said a word.

Papyrus reached the second floor and strode to Sans’s room. Sans managed to summon the energy to flick the lock open just before Papyrus turned the knob, and they walked in without a problem. Papyrus barely muffled a groan at the sight of the bare mattress, dirty sheets, and piles of trash and socks, and Sans barely hid his smirk in his brother’s shirt. Still, Papyrus said nothing. He knelt in front of the mattress and laid Sans down, then took off his own jacket and rested it over Sans like a blanket.

The mattress was stiff and dirty and smelled a little, and Sans snuggled down into it, peering up at Papyrus’s disapproving stare with a soft grin. Papyrus sighed, but it was just as content as it was annoyed.

“THERE. ARE YOU COMFORTABLE?”

“never better,” Sans murmured.

Papyrus gave him another disapproving look-over, but nodded. “GOOD.”

Only as he started to stand up did Sans’s tired mind remind him of what he should have thought of the second Papyrus picked him up.

“what ‘bout your story?”

Papyrus paused. He dropped back down to the floor, apparently deep in thought, but shook his head a second later.

“I DON’T THINK I WOULD ENJOY ANY STORY YOU WOULD TELL IN YOUR CURRENT STATE OF MIND,” he said. He frowned a little deeper. “IT WOULD PROBABLY INVOLVE TALKING MACARONI!”

Sans grinned. “and pickles, bro. don’t forget the pickles.”

“UGH …”

Sans chuckled, and Papyrus huffed, and it was familiar and constant and perfect and this was how he wanted it to be forever. Just the two of them, safe and warm and happy and _together._ Even if the rest of it didn’t last. Even if they lost their house, even if they lost their savings, even if they lost everything they owned. They had lost all that before, more times than he could count. But they still had each other. They would always have each other.

Papyrus sighed, and Sans’s eyes drifted back up to him, sleepy and pleased.

“GOODNIGHT, SANS,” he said, reaching out to brush his fingers over Sans’s skull, like Sans had done for him years ago. “TRY NOT TO BE SUCH A LAZYBONES TOMORROW.”

Sans thought about making a joke, but for once, none came to mind. All he could do was look up at his brother’s face and marvel at how old he looked, how much he had grown, and how much his eyes still gleamed like that little baby he had held in his arms all those years ago.

Papyrus started to get up again, grimacing again at the mattress and the floor, as if he might try to pick up a little before he went to bed himself. But instead of simply closing his eyes and sinking into sleep, like he had wanted to do a minute ago, Sans found his eyes refusing to close. He stared at up at his brother, and suddenly, the idea of being alone in this room felt more terrifying than it had since they had moved in. For the first time in years, he remembered the warmth and comfort of sleeping with someone he loved at his side and couldn’t imagine anything different.

He didn’t want Papyrus to go.

He didn’t realize his hand had slipped out from under the covers until it grabbed Papyrus’s arm. It was weak, and Papyrus easily could have pulled out of his grip, but instead he stopped, turning around and furrowing his browbone as he stared down at Sans in his bed.

Sans didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t have known what to say.

But as usual, he didn’t have to.

With only a soft, fond sigh and a small smile, Papyrus climbed into the bed at Sans’s side, lifting the jacket and laying it back down over both of them.

He wrapped his arms around Sans and pulled him close, settling Sans’s skull just beneath his chin, gripping him just tight enough to hold him securely without hurting him. Sans pressed closer still, clinging to the body that had once clung to him, the one he had sworn to protect the second he first held him in his arms. He soaked in the sound of every breath, the warmth of his bones, the constant, faint buzzing of his soul. His brother was here. He was alive, he was safe, and he wasn’t going anywhere.

They had done it. They had made it. They had struggled and suffered but they had _made_ it.

Both of them.

Together.

But … it hadn’t been just them.

Not all the time, at least.

There had been others. People who picked them up when they fell down, even if Sans ran away from them as soon as he was back on his feet. Sometimes he wondered if he could have gotten up on his own, if they hadn’t stepped in. Maybe. Maybe not. He didn’t like to think about it. He didn’t like the feeling of being dependent on someone else, anyone else. But … if he was willing to depend on Papyrus, to let him care for him just as Sans had done for the little baby he carried all the way to Snowdin, then maybe it wasn’t so bad to depend on someone else. For a little while, at least.

And he _had_ depended on them, in those small moments. Small moments that had nudged him forward when he was all too close to stopping.

He could still see Jackie’s gentle smile, ushering them to the back of the inn toward an empty bed. Lop stuffing a bag with toys and food and clothes, clothes they had worn until they were more holes than cloth, toys they had kept until they couldn’t carry them around any more, food that had kept them fed for a week. Grillby wrapping them in blankets in front of the fire and running them a hot bath, serving food whenever they couldn’t find their own.

A group of children with sparklers, welcoming them in like friends even if they never even learned their names. Jackie slipping gold into his bag, just enough for a down payment on the house.

And his brother. Sharing his food even when Sans tried to feed it all to him. Giving him a drawing after a bad day. Snuggling just a little closer when he woke up from a bad dream. Telling him that everything would work out when it seemed like it never would.

Maybe Papyrus had been right, all those years ago. Maybe they would never have that nice little family most of those other kids drew in their pictures. But they had people who cared about them. People who would help them when things were rough. And they had someone who would stick by them no matter what.

Wasn’t that what a family was supposed to be?

Wasn’t that all he had ever wanted?

Sans let out a long, heavy sigh and settled closer, and felt Papyrus’s arms tighten just a bit. His permanent smile softened into something warm and sleepy, but as real as it had ever been.

Yes. Everything was fine.

And as long as they were together, it always would be.


End file.
